EMBELLISHMENT

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does embellishment mean? 

• EMBELLISHMENT (noun)
  The noun EMBELLISHMENT has 3 senses:

1. elaboration of an interpretation by the use of decorative (sometimes fictitious) detail

2. a superfluous ornament

3. the act of adding extraneous decorations to something

  Familiarity information: EMBELLISHMENT used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• EMBELLISHMENT (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Elaboration of an interpretation by the use of decorative (sometimes fictitious) detail

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

embellishment; embroidery

Context example:

the mystery has been heightened by many embellishments in subsequent retellings

Hypernyms ("embellishment" is a kind of...):

elaboration; enlargement; expansion (a discussion that provides additional information)

Derivation:

embellish (add details to)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A superfluous ornament

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Hypernyms ("embellishment" is a kind of...):

decoration; ornament; ornamentation (something used to beautify)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "embellishment"):

boule; boulle; buhl (an inlaid furniture decoration; tortoiseshell and yellow and white metal form scrolls in cabinetwork)

cuspidation (a decoration using cusps)

festoon (an embellishment consisting of a decorative representation of a string of flowers suspended between two points; used on pottery or in architectural work)

filagree; filigree; fillagree (delicate and intricate ornamentation (usually in gold or silver or other fine twisted wire))

vermiculation (a decoration consisting of wormlike carvings)

flourish (an ornamental embellishment in writing)

Sense 3

Meaning:

The act of adding extraneous decorations to something

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

embellishment; ornamentation

Hypernyms ("embellishment" is a kind of...):

decoration (the act of decorating something (in the hope of making it more attractive))

Derivation:

embellish (make more attractive by adding ornament, colour, etc.)

 Context examples 

Its smell and its colour are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Here, however, Elinor perceived,—not the language, not the professions of Colonel Brandon, but the natural embellishments of her mother's active fancy, which fashioned every thing delightful to her as it chose.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

She heard it all under embellishment.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

When I approached the Doctor's cottage—a pretty old place, on which he seemed to have expended some money, if I might judge from the embellishments and repairs that had the look of being just completed—I saw him walking in the garden at the side, gaiters and all, as if he had never left off walking since the days of my pupilage.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

In the principal facts they have sources of intelligence in former histories and records, which may be as much depended on, I conclude, as anything that does not actually pass under one's own observation; and as for the little embellishments you speak of, they are embellishments, and I like them as such.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

The difficulty is to detach the framework of fact—of absolute undeniable fact—from the embellishments of theorists and reporters.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Reflection had given calmness to her judgment, and sobered her own opinion of Willoughby's deserts;—she wished, therefore, to declare only the simple truth, and lay open such facts as were really due to his character, without any embellishment of tenderness to lead the fancy astray.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

Promising to be with them the whole of the following morning, therefore, she closed the fatigues of the present by a toilsome walk to Camden Place, there to spend the evening chiefly in listening to the busy arrangements of Elizabeth and Mrs Clay for the morrow's party, the frequent enumeration of the persons invited, and the continually improving detail of all the embellishments which were to make it the most completely elegant of its kind in Bath, while harassing herself with the never-ending question, of whether Captain Wentworth would come or not?

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)