EMBROIDERY

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does embroidery mean? 

• EMBROIDERY (noun)
  The noun EMBROIDERY has 2 senses:

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

2. decorative needlework

  Familiarity information: EMBROIDERY used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• EMBROIDERY (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 ("embroidery" is a kind of...):

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

Derivation:

embroider (add details to)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Decorative needlework

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Synonyms:

embroidery; fancywork

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

needlecraft; needlework (a creation created or assembled by needle and thread)

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

candlewick (loops of soft yarn are cut to give a tufted pattern)

crewelwork (embroidery done with loosely twisted worsted yarn)

cross-stitch (embroidery done with pairs of stitches that cross each other)

cutwork (embroidery in which the design is outlined in a buttonhole stitch and the intervening material is cut away)

drawnwork (ornamental needlework done by drawing threads to form lacelike patterns)

faggoting; fagoting (embroidery in which groups of parallel threads are tied together with fagot stitches)

hemstitch (embroidery similar to drawnwork)

needlepoint; needlepoint embroidery (embroidery consisting of allover embroidered canvas resembling tapestry)

sampler (a piece of embroidery demonstrating skill with various stitches)

smocking (embroidery consisting of ornamental needlework on a garment that is made by gathering the cloth tightly in stitches)

Derivation:

embroider (decorate with needlework)

 Context examples 

Every stitch Daisy's patient little fingers had put into the handkerchiefs she hemmed was better than embroidery to Mrs. March.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

"How well you read me, you witch!" interposed Mr. Rochester: "but what did you find in the veil besides its embroidery? Did you find poison, or a dagger, that you look so mournful now?"

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

While Amy dressed, she issued her orders, and Jo obeyed them, not without entering her protest, however, for she sighed as she rustled into her new organdie, frowned darkly at herself as she tied her bonnet strings in an irreproachable bow, wrestled viciously with pins as she put on her collar, wrinkled up her features generally as she shook out the handkerchief, whose embroidery was as irritating to her nose as the present mission was to her feelings, and when she had squeezed her hands into tight gloves with three buttons and a tassel, as the last touch of elegance, she turned to Amy with an imbecile expression of countenance, saying meekly...

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

One day, however, as she put away her account-book and unfolded her embroidery, she suddenly took her up thus—Georgiana, a more vain and absurd animal than you was certainly never allowed to cumber the earth.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

The furniture once appropriated to the lower apartments had from time to time been removed here, as fashions changed: and the imperfect light entering by their narrow casement showed bedsteads of a hundred years old; chests in oak or walnut, looking, with their strange carvings of palm branches and cherubs' heads, like types of the Hebrew ark; rows of venerable chairs, high-backed and narrow; stools still more antiquated, on whose cushioned tops were yet apparent traces of half-effaced embroideries, wrought by fingers that for two generations had been coffin-dust.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)