WORD OF THE DAY: EMBELLISH
verb|im-BELL-ish
What It Means
To embellish something is to make it more appealing or attractive with fanciful or decorative details.
// The gift shop had cowboy shirts and hats embellished with beads and stitching.
// As they grew older, the children realized their grandfather had embellished the stories of his travels abroad.
Examples of EMBELLISH
“Shell art isn’t a new genre; it’s been with us for centuries. The Victorians often framed their family photos with shells. … The medium also came to the fore in the 1970s when everything was embellished with shells, from photo frames and mirrors to trinket boxes and even furniture.” — Stephen Crafti, The Sydney Morning Herald, 4 June 2025.
Did You Know?
Embellish came to English, by way of Anglo-French, from the Latin word bellus, meaning “beautiful.” It’s in good company: modern language is adorned with bellus descendants. Examples include such classics as beauty, belle, and beau. And the beauty of bellus reaches beyond English: its influence is seen in the French bel, a word meaning “beautiful” that is directly related to the English embellish. And in Spanish, bellus is evidenced in the word bello, also meaning “beautiful.”
Merriam Webster Dictionary
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