patterned

1. 1
   adjective

   Having a decorative design of repeated shapes, lines, or colors across its surface.

   The designer chose a boldly patterned wallpaper for the entryway.

   Her scarf was finely patterned with interlocking geometric figures.

   Similardecorated, printed, figured

   Oppositeplain

2. 2
   adjective

   Shaped or arranged so as to conform to a particular model or example.

   The company's leadership structure is patterned on the military.

   His prose, deliberately patterned after Hemingway, favors short declarative sentences.

   Similarmodeled, based

   Note

   Before a noun, the word can mean made to match an official specimen. The Royal Navy kept patterned birches and patterned canes at its main dockyards so that the punishment implements on every ship would be the same. A patterned cane is a standard-issue cane, not a decorated one, so this use is easy to misread as the 'decorated' meaning. Followed by on or after, the word always means this sense.

3. 3
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of pattern.

   The weaver patterned the cloth with interlocking diamonds.

   The committee patterned the new rules on an older system.

   Note

   The verb form behind both adjectives carries every sense of pattern, including one from hunting: to have patterned an animal is to have watched it long enough to learn its habitual movements. With an object like cloth, it means a design was applied. In the passive, patterned on or after shades into the 'modeled on' adjective.

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