decoration vs ornament

decoration

noun
  • Any item that adorns, enriches, or beautifies; something added by way of embellishment or ornamentation. 

  • Specifically, any mark of honor to be worn upon the person, as a medal, cross, or ribbon of an order of knighthood, bestowed for services in war, great achievements in literature, art, etc. 

  • The use of exotic sugars as decoys to distract the immune system of a host 

  • The act of adorning, embellishing, or honoring; ornamentation. 

ornament

noun
  • An element of decoration; that which embellishes or adorns. 

  • The articles used in church services. 

  • A characteristic that has a decorative function (typically in order to attract a mate) 

  • A musical flourish that is unnecessary to the overall melodic or harmonic line, but serves to decorate that line. 

  • A Christmas tree decoration. 

verb
  • To decorate. 

  • To add to. 

How often have the words decoration and ornament occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )