What does decorum mean?
Appropriateness of behavior or conduct; propriety: “In the Ireland of the 1940’s … the stolidity of a long, empty, grave face was thought to be the height of decorum and profundity” (John McGahern). decorums The conventions or requirements of polite behavior: the formalities and decorums of a military funeral. The appropriateness of an element of an artistic or literary work, such as style or tone, to its particular circumstance or to the composition as a whole. [Latin decōrum, from decōrus, becoming, handsome. See decorous.] Definition: appropriate behavior, good manners Antonyms: bad behavior, bad manners, impoliteness, indecency, rudeness a standard of appropriateness by which certain styles, characters, forms, and actions in literary works are deemed suitable to one another within a hierarchical model of culture bound by class distinctions. Derived from Horace’s Ars Poetica (c.20 BCE) and other works of classical criticism, decorum was a major principle of late Renaissance taste an
