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Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. v. To make beautiful, as by ornamentation; decorate.
  2. v. To add ornamental or fictitious details to: a fanciful account that embellishes the true story.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. To set off with ornamentation; make beautiful, pleasing, or attractive to the eye or the mind; adorn; decorate; deck: as, to embellish the person with rich apparel; to embellish a garden with shrubs and flowers; a style embellished by metaphors; a book embellished by engravings.
  2. Synonyms Ornament, Decorate, etc. (see adorn). See list under decorate.

Wiktionary

  1. v. To make more beautiful and attractive; to decorate.
  2. v. To make something sound or look better or more acceptable than it is in reality, to distort.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. v. To make beautiful or elegant by ornaments; to decorate; to adorn.

WordNet 3.0

  1. v. make more attractive by adding ornament, colour, etc.
  2. v. add details to
  3. v. make more beautiful
  4. v. be beautiful to look at

Etymologies

  1. Middle English embelishen, from Old French embellir, embelliss- : en-, causative pref.; see en-1 + bel, beautiful (from Latin bellus; see deu-2 in Indo-European roots).

Examples

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‘embellish’ has been looked up 2216 times, loved by 1 person, added to 44 lists, and has a Scrabble score of 16.