Search the Dictionary

To make beautiful or elegant by ornaments; to decorate; to adorn; as, to embellish a book with pictures, a garden with shrubs and flowers, a narrative with striking anecdotes, or style with metaphors.

One who embellishes.

he state of being adorned; adornment. In the selection of their ground, as well as in the embellishment of it. Prescott.

To deprive of embellishment; to disadorn. Carlyle.

To deck or dress with ornaments; to embellish; to set off to advantage; to render pleasing or attractive. As a bride adorneth herself with her jewels. Isa. lxi. 10. At church, with meek and unaffected grace, His looks adorned the venerable place. Goldsmith.

To dress with external ornaments; to cover with something ornamental; to deck; to embellish; as, trees appareled with flowers, or a garden with verdure. Appareled in celestial light. Wordsworth.

Unadorned; unembellished; severely simple.

Beautiful; embellished. [Poetic] Shak.

To make or render beautiful; to add beauty to; to adorn; to deck; to grace; to embellish. The arts that beautify and polish life. Burke.

To set in order; to adorn; to deck, to embellish; to trim. Shak.

To deck; to embellish; to adorn. She blazons in dread smiles her hideous form. Garth.

A cadenza, or closing embellishment; a pause before the end of a strain, which the performer may fill with a flight of fancy. Imperfect cadence. (Mus.) See under Imperfect.

to clothe; especially, to clothe with more than ordinary elegance; to array; to adorn; to embellish. Deck thyself now with majesty and excellency. Job xl. 10. And deck my body in gay ornaments. Shak. The dew with spangles decked the ground. Dryden.

To deck with that which is becoming, ornamental, or honorary; to adorn; to beautify; to embellish; as, to decorate the person; to decorate an edifice; to decorate a lawn with flowers; to decorate the mind with moral beauties; to decorate a hero with honors. Her fat neck was ornamented with jewels, rich bracelets decora…

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

Suited to decorate or embellish; adorning. -- Dec"o*ra*tive*ness, n. Decorative art, fine art which has for its end ornamentation, rather than the representation of objects or events.

One who decorates, adorns, or embellishes; specifically, an artisan whose business is the decoration of houses, esp. their interior decoration.

res; a defacement; a blot. Uncommon expressions . . . are a disfigurement rather than any embellishment of discourse. Hume.

Destitute of that which interests or amuses; barren; unembellished; jejune; plain. These epistles will become less dry, more susceptible of ornament. Pope.

of gold . . . may make the metal work the better, but it embaseth it. Bacon. Such pitiful embellishments of speech as serve for nothing but to embase divinity. South.