Embellish

//ɪmˈbɛlɪʃ// verb

verb ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To make more beautiful and attractive by adding ornamentation; to decorate.

    "The old book cover was embellished with golden letters"

  2. 2
    make more beautiful wordnet
  3. 3
    To enhance by adding something not strictly integral or necessary. broadly

    "A Scythian Shepherd, so imbelliſhed With Natures pride, and richeſt furniture? His looks do menace heauen & dare the Gods, His fiery eies are fixt vpon the earth."

  4. 4
    add details to wordnet
  5. 5
    To make something sound or look better or more acceptable than it is in reality; to distort, embroider, or even misrepresent or lie.

    "to embellish a story, the truth"

Show 2 more definitions
  1. 6
    make more attractive by adding ornament, colour, etc. wordnet
  2. 7
    be beautiful to look at wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
beautifydeckdecorateadornadornbeautify

Example

More examples

"You're just seeking to embellish all this!"

Etymology

From Middle English embelishen, from Old French embellir, from em- + bel.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.