embellish ɪmˈbɛlɪʃ verb
1. make more attractive, as by adding ornament or color
2. make more beautiful
3. add details to
4. be beautiful to look at
The word embellish has appeared in 36 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year, including on Jan. 8 in “Josh O’Connor x 4,” by Manohla Dargis. One of the four films she discusses is “Rebuilding”:
At one point, he reluctantly moves into a FEMA trailer in an isolated makeshift camp, and insistently tells another disaster victim who’s living there: “Listen, I’m not like these folks.” O’Connor delivers the line as if he were sharing a confidence; the words already sting so he doesn’t need to embellish them.
Daily Word Challenge
Can you correctly use the word embellish in a sentence?
Based on the definition and example provided, write a sentence using today’s Word of the Day and share it as a comment on this article. It is most important that your sentence makes sense and demonstrates that you understand the word’s definition, but we also encourage you to be creative and have fun.
If you want a better idea of how embellish can be used in a sentence, read these usage examples on Vocabulary.com. You can also visit this guide to learn how to use IPA symbols to show how different words are pronounced.
If you enjoy this daily challenge, try our vocabulary quizzes.
Students ages 13 and older in the United States and the United Kingdom, and 16 and older elsewhere, can comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff.
The Word of the Day is provided by Vocabulary.com. Learn more and see usage examples across a range of subjects in the Vocabulary.com Dictionary. See every Word of the Day in this column.
The post Word of the Day: embellish appeared first on New York Times.
