embellish
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day
Merriam-Webster
4.3 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 26 July 2025
⏱️ 2 minutes
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Summary
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for July 26, 2025 is:
embellish • \im-BELL-ish\ • verb
To embellish something is to make it more appealing or attractive with fanciful or decorative details.
// The gift shop had cowboy shirts and hats embellished with beads and stitching.
// As they grew older, the children realized their grandfather had embellished the stories of his travels abroad.
Examples:
"Shell art isn't a new genre; it's been with us for centuries. The Victorians often framed their family photos with shells. ... The medium also came to the fore in the 1970s when everything was embellished with shells, from photo frames and mirrors to trinket boxes and even furniture." — Stephen Crafti, The Sydney Morning Herald, 4 June 2025
Did you know?
Embellish came to English, by way of Anglo-French, from the Latin word bellus, meaning "beautiful." It's in good company: modern language is adorned with bellus descendants. Examples include such classics as beauty, belle, and beau. And the beauty of bellus reaches beyond English: its influence is seen in the French bel, a word meaning "beautiful" that is directly related to the English embellish. And in Spanish, bellus is evidenced in the word bello, also meaning "beautiful."
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It's the Word of the Day podcast for July 26th. |
| 0:10.8 | At Matalan, the one you've been waiting for is here. |
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| 0:23.6 | It's your chance to save big across women's men's kids and home. Shopping store now or online at matelan.com.uk. Season C's apply. |
| 0:32.1 | Today's word is embellish, spelled E-M-B-E-L-L-I-S-H. Embelishish is a verb to embellish something is to make it more appealing or attractive |
| 0:42.3 | with fanciful or decorative details here's the word used and a sentence from the sydney morning herald |
| 0:48.1 | shell art isn't a new genre it's been with us for centuries. The Victorians often framed their family |
| 0:55.1 | photos with shells. The medium also came to the fore in the 1970s when everything was embellished |
| 1:01.5 | with shells, from photo frames and mirrors to trinket boxes and even furniture. The word embellished |
| 1:08.1 | came to English by way of Anglo-French, from the Latin word bellus, meaning beautiful. |
| 1:14.1 | It's in good company. Modern language is adorned with Bellus descendants. |
| 1:19.5 | Examples include such classics as Beauty, Bell, and Bow. |
| 1:24.1 | And the beauty of Bellus reaches beyond English. Its influence is seen in the French word |
| 1:30.5 | bell, B-E-L, a word meaning beautiful that is directly related to the English embellish. And in Spanish, |
| 1:37.5 | Bellus is evidenced in the word bello, meaning beautiful. With your word of the day, I'm Peter |
| 1:42.5 | Sokolowski. |
| 1:52.9 | Visit Miriamwebster.com today for definitions, wordplay, and trending word lookups. |
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