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embellish
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  • We listened attentively to see if he was going to embellish the story with more striking details.†   (source)
  • For three years she must have nurtured a feeling for him, kept it hidden, nourished it with fantasy or embellished it in her stories.†   (source)
  • When she handed him the damaged blue china to use as an ashtray, she used all her favorite words to embellish the story of breaking and then hiding, inside her coat, the now homely Wedgwood cup.†   (source)
  • We have disguises that, perhaps with some embellishments from Tigris's furry stock, could get us safely there.†   (source)
  • Eragon nervously clasped his hands and told the story without embellishment.†   (source)
  • He waved toward a row of ink cakes embellished with designs of peonies and bamboo: "Your ledgers will blossom into abundance while bamboo surrounds your quiet mind."†   (source)
  • Workers were putting in "the embellishments," he wrote.†   (source)
  • What we have, even in our earliest recorded literature, are variants, embellishments, versions, what Frye called "displacement" of the myth.†   (source)
  • No one spoke, interrupted, tried to embellish the account.†   (source)
  • He didn't forget to include the part about lying to him about where they were going—which Jace, apparently, had— or the part about never trusting Jace again, and even added extra embellishments, like some bits about breaking the Law, getting tossed out of the Clave, and bringing shame on the proud and ancient name of Wayland.†   (source)
  • That was all she said, inhibited perhaps by the resonance of her voice in the darkness, for the custom of embellishing silent films with piano accompaniment had not yet been established here, and in the darkened enclosure all that one could hear was the projector murmuring like rain.†   (source)
  • This embellishment is a product of your imagination.†   (source)
  • It was especially important that I hear her version of the attack before she either forgot the details or embellished them.†   (source)
  • He began embellishing-a teaspoon of blood became a cup; the stain on her white pants grew from a modest spot to a Rorschach blot of enormous proportion.†   (source)
  • People love to embellish tales of daring.†   (source)
  • I looked undecorated and to my eye unfeminine—no jewelry, no makeup, no embellishments at all.†   (source)
  • The music was familiar, Wagner's traditional march surrounded by a flood of embellishments.†   (source)
  • The obsidian walls were carved with scenes of death: plague victims, corpses on the battlefield, torture chambers with skeletons hanging in iron cages—all of it embellished with precious gems that somehow made the scenes even more ghastly.†   (source)
  • Mark embellished the tale a little more each time he'd told it.†   (source)
  • He was comfortable with himself; he didn't need any embellishment.†   (source)
  • It was tied at the open edge with cloth straps, and debossed on the front, its letters still bearing glittering traces of golden embellishments, were the words Imaginarium Geographica.†   (source)
  • As was so common with Snow Flower, her embroidery embellishments called upon the sky for inspiration.†   (source)
  • Girls embellished in jewelry and fads, It's hard to distinguish them from the older lads, Boys wear earrings, pants below the waist, In society's eyes they're indeed a disgrace.†   (source)
  • When he recalls it in later years, he will wonder if he is distorting it, embellishing it, because each time he consciously recalls her, that forms a new memory, a new imprint to be stacked on top of the previous one.†   (source)
  • For the moment, Herschel gave every indication of being a liar, or at least a great embellisher.†   (source)
  • We discussed John's and my year abroad, me carefully embellishing the journey to sound like the ideal honeymoon.†   (source)
  • Richardson, "master of the human heart," had "done more towards embellishing the present age, and teaching them the talent of letter-writing, than any other modern I can name."†   (source)
  • Mommy had embellished her home with lights, candles, and ornaments during the Christmas season.†   (source)
  • Mom's embellishments and half-truths usually equip her to tell a good story, though.†   (source)
  • It has the air of one of his well-told tales, but though those may be embellished, none of this is true.†   (source)
  • Few embellishments but the wandering star quilt, in sapphire and rose, and matching throw pillows.†   (source)
  • Stories about her would be handed down from one generation to the next, embroidered, embellished, until it would be impossible to say which part was truth, which part was fiction.†   (source)
  • He is a boaster and a liar, fond of embellishing stories to make himself sound daring and adventurous.†   (source)
  • " I was never certain which of my dad's stories were true and which had been embellished; I'm not even sure that he himself knew.†   (source)
  • Prof embellished with pictures of "nightclubs" with acts impossible in Terra's horrible gravity, sports to fit our decent level of gravitation—even talked about swimming pools and ice skating and possibility of flying!†   (source)
  • On the other hand, he did not embellish his importance; he was the secure bureaucrat, confident that whatever expertise he possessed could weather changes in administrations.†   (source)
  • The three looked up in alarm to see looming over them and about to collide the pale green social hall, its towering pointed windows, wrought-iron floral embellishments, solid silence, air somehow of waiting for them.†   (source)
  • At eye-level, next to Emmi's bare knee, was a small plastic medical kit embellished with a green cross.†   (source)
  • Everyone loved squirrel, although there was one purist faction in the class that liked squirrel meat without any other embellishments and another who preferred their squirrel with a thick gravy and a heavy stew.†   (source)
  • We are to dignify to each other the daily needs and offices of man's life, and embellish it by courage, wisdom and unity.   (source)
  • The young girl is lovely and her tears only embellish her; the lady appears to be about forty years of age, the girl about fourteen.   (source)
  • "The material world," continued Dupin, "abounds with very strict analogies to the immaterial; and thus some color of truth has been given to the rhetorical dogma, that metaphor, or simile, may be made to strengthen an argument, as well as to embellish a description."   (source)
    embellish = make something more attractive or interesting by adding to it
  • Behind him Brom leaned on a twisted staff embellished with strange carvings.†   (source)
  • How many subtle embellishments pointing the way?†   (source)
  • The embellishments in the oblong room, though old and faded, were replete with familiar symbology.†   (source)
  • Try the other boot cuts, the ones with the embellished pockets, okay?†   (source)
  • He wore a helm embellished with gold, silver, and rubies and, on his fingers, five large rings.†   (source)
  • "They won't find a body The body's just another embellishment," he said.†   (source)
  • –were first reported accurately and then embellished and fictionalized.†   (source)
  • Her suspicions got embellished by, of all people, Mike Fallopian of t ho Peter Pinguid Society.†   (source)
  • To the right loomed the Palace of the Tribunal, the lush papal residence rivaled only by Versailles in its baroque embellishment.†   (source)
  • Embellished with over two hundred stained-glass windows, a fifty-three-bell carillon, and a 10,647-pipe organ, this Gothic masterpiece can accommodate more than three thousand worshippers.†   (source)
  • A slide projector flashed to life, revealing a faded sepia photograph—a dramatic castle with a red sandstone facade, high square towers, and Gothic embellishments.†   (source)
  • He embellished to make his point, adding French windows open onto a wrought-iron balcony through which an ancient wisteria threaded, and a gramophone on a round table covered by a green chenille cloth, and a Persian rug spread across a chaise longue.†   (source)
  • The pillar on the left was carved with simple, vertical lines, while the pillar on the right was embellished with an ornate, flowering spiral.†   (source)
  • Idling students may see time itself as a complex embellishment, a romance of human consciousness, as they witness the chairman walking across campus, crook'd arm emerging from his medieval robe, the digital watch blinking in late summer dusk. the robe is black, of course, and goes with almost anything.†   (source)
  • Stories that mentioned the Beor Mountains always noted their size, but he had discounted such reports as fanciful embellishments.†   (source)
  • From the scarified Nubian priests of 2000 B.C., to the tattooed acolytes of the Cybele cult of ancient Rome, to the moko scars of the modern Maori, humans have tattooed themselves as a way of offering up their bodies in partial sacrifice, enduring the physical pain of embellishment and emerging changed beings.†   (source)
  • When Shayna, the director, read it out loud, it was clear to me that whoever had written it had embellished, for some reason needing to make it sound worse than it actually was.†   (source)
  • The house-or rather, mansion-was set on the west side of Teirm, close to the citadel, among scores of other opulent buildings embellished with fine scrollwork, wrought-iron gates, statues, and gushing fountains.†   (source)
  • My eyes were okay— they were mud-colored on an average day and green if I felt like embellishing—but most of all, they showed the part of me I was proud of: my intelligence.†   (source)
  • As he talked, Katie noticed that he didn't seem to either embellish or downplay his past, nor did he appear to be overly preoccupied with what others thought of him.†   (source)
  • One of Blodhgarm's spellcasters, a female elf with silver hair, withdrew a small gold harp from a velvet case and accompanied the villagers with notes of her own, embellishing upon the simple themes of their melodies, lending the familiar music a wistful mood.†   (source)
  • When I first arrived, the main room was much as it is now—with ele-gant furniture, a wood floor, a good breeze from the high windows, and stairs that climbed along the east wall to a wooden balcony embellished with an overlapping diamond pattern.†   (source)
  • And the first detailed drops splashing at the bottom of the goblet with a scatter of spindrift, each fleck embellished with the finicky rigor of some precisionist painting.†   (source)
  • His testimony was given with simplicity and what seemed like candor, but Mtolo had gone out of his way to embellish his evidence.†   (source)
  • And of course, Felicity embellishes the tale, as she is wont to do, until everyone at Spence fears to venture anywhere near our door.†   (source)
  • What if the gospels that had been dismissed and debunked were the real ones, and the ones that had been picked for the New Testament were the embellished versions?†   (source)
  • He was not one given to seeing life as a climb to the top of a ladder or mountain, but more as a journey or adventure, even a "kind of romance, which a little embellished with fiction or exaggeration or only poetical ornament, would equal anything in the days of chivalry or knight errantry," as once he confided to Abigail.†   (source)
  • On Saturday, February 24, the day after the flagraisings and the day before the photo appeared, correspondents continued to embellish the myth of the battle of Suribachi: SURIBACHI REACHED IN A FIERY BATTLE —— WAY TO VOLCANO'S BASE BURNED WITH FLAMETHROWERS PRIOR TO SCALING OF VOLCANO —— ASCENT MADE BY MARINES AS JAPANESE HURLED GRENADES AND POURED BULLETS ON THEM The boys of Easy Company would have howled at these gross exaggerations, but the Times copy just kept it up.†   (source)
  • He'd been astonished, as a young man, to see how frequently reporters embellished interviews with him, even making up quotes when it suited their flowery visions.†   (source)
  • And yet if I may say so you have come to the right place whatever your problem whatever your need you have only to speak good news bad news every sort but sad news reputations restored events embellished history rewritten great deeds sung and all work guaranteed by the oldest established news agency in all Nevia news from all worlds all universes propaganda planted or uprooted offset or rechanneled satisfaction guaranteed honesty is the best policy but the client is always right don't…†   (source)
  • He approved, took over, and embellished a suggestion that Carmen and Bob should have their own quarters.†   (source)
  • I could tell that Nathan had warmed immediately to this proposal, or endorsement, nodding vigorously while in my own wound-up zeal I continued to embellish the outlines of the travelogue.†   (source)
  • I say phony because Mosby, a Virginia colonel, was not related to me in the slightest way; the story, however, was both passably authentic and colorful and I told it with drawling embellishments and winsome sidelights and bravura touches, savoring each dramatic effect and in the end turning on such slick medium-voltage charm that Leslie, eyes ashine, reached up and grasped my hand as she had at Coney Island, and I felt her palm a little moist with desire, or so it seemed.†   (source)
  • Then when she saw Teacher there looking so interested, she embellished the story.†   (source)
  • …start she would wake up again–wake up to the aquarium antics of the Tennis Champions, to the Super-Vox-Wurlitzeriana rendering of "Hug me till you drug me, honey," to the warm draught of verbena that came blowing through the ventilator above her head–would wake to these things, or rather to a dream of which these things, transformed and embellished by the soma in her blood, were the marvellous constituents, and smile once more her broken and discoloured smile of infantile contentment.†   (source)
  • Winston, in addition to his regular work, spent long periods every day in going through back files of The Times and altering and embellishing news items which were to be quoted in speeches.†   (source)
  • They fed hungrily on all the dramatic gusto with which, lunging back and forth in the big rocker, before the blazing parlor fire, he told and retold the legends of his experience, taking, before their charmed eyes, an incident that had touched him romantically, and embellishing, weaving and building it up.†   (source)
  • I've been at Schonbrunn and in the Bourbon establishment in Madrid and seen all that embellishment as the setting of power.†   (source)
  • Its beech-like trunk was embellished with a beard of twigs at the bottom, and where each of the great branches had sprung from the trunk the bark had split and was now discoloured with rain water or sap.†   (source)
  • This part of the lamasery, on a higher storey, was no less tastefully embellished than the rest, but its most immediately striking feature was a dry, tingling warmth, as if all the windows were tightly closed and some kind of steam-heating plant were working at full pressure.†   (source)
  • Some day I'll tell you with embellishments just where and how I stole him and how narrowly I missed getting shot.†   (source)
  • I asked him about it, and he laughed just as big as you please: 'Why, Mrs. Gant,' he said—" and there would follow an endless anecdote, embellished with many a winding rivulet.†   (source)
  • Shall I tell you without any embellishments?†   (source)
  • I have tried to tell a simple, straightforward story, with no attempt at embellishment.†   (source)
  • His second embellishment was combing and slicking back his hair.†   (source)
  • Two strange travellers embellished one of his rooms.†   (source)
  • "Nothing can embellish a beautiful face more than a narrow band drawn over the brow," says Richter.†   (source)
  • He sought to make of man something which should be superior to man, and to embellish beauty's self.†   (source)
  • Two or three exquisite paintings of children, in various attitudes, embellished the wall.†   (source)
  • Why a roof of copper, embellished and gilt, two thousand livres at the most.†   (source)
  • Jude thought with a feeling of sickness that though this might be true to some extent, for all that he knew, many unsophisticated girls would and did go to towns and remain there for years without losing their simplicity of life and embellishments.†   (source)
  • It was all the result of an endless delight in invention, in the subtlest variation and embellishment of one basic design: the equilateral, equiangular hexagon.†   (source)
  • Her voice, strong and clear in tone, attacked with great spirit the runs which embellish the air and though she sang very rapidly she did not miss even the smallest of the grace notes.†   (source)
  • And these carried back to Sondra, along with certain embellishments by Constance, had the desired effect.†   (source)
  • When you talked about notching ears and slitting noses I judged that that was your own embellishment, because white men don't take that sort of revenge.†   (source)
  • And so in any event he would embellish all his facial expressions with the offer of a conditional, a provisional smile whose expectant subtlety would exonerate him from the charge of being a simpleton, if the remark addressed to him should turn out to have been facetious.†   (source)
  • I suppose that there are some types of beauty and even of youth made for the embellishments that come with enduring sorrow.†   (source)
  • You have shown your relish for it by the enthusiasm which has prompted you to chronicle, and, if you will excuse my saying so, somewhat to embellish so many of my own little adventures.†   (source)
  • It is pleasant to me to observe, Watson, that you have so far grasped this truth that in these little records of our cases which you have been good enough to draw up, and, I am bound to say, occasionally to embellish, you have given prominence not so much to the many causes célèbres and sensational trials in which I have figured but rather to those incidents which may have been trivial in themselves, but which have given room for those faculties of deduction and of logical synthesis…†   (source)
  • The house itself, while primarily a charming example of that excellent taste which produced those delightful gabled homes which embellish the average New England town and street, had been by now so reduced for want of paint, shingles, and certain flags which had once made a winding walk from a road gate to the front door, that it presented a decidedly melancholy aspect to the world, as though it might be coughing and saying: "Well, things are none too satisfactory with me."†   (source)
  • Office-hours were over: and at that period of the day, in warm weather, she usually embellished with her genteel presence, a managerial board-room over the public office.†   (source)
  • Then Dr. Johnson blandly assured us that education was needful solely for the embellishments of life, and was useless for ordinary vermin.†   (source)
  • Those simple edifices might have been permitted to retain all of sacred embellishment that their Puritan founders had bestowed, even though the mighty structure of St. Peter's had sent its spoils to the fire of this terrible sacrifice.†   (source)
  • If he sacrifices a large portion of his income to the State, he deprives himself for a time of the pleasures of affluence; but to the poor man death is embellished by no pomp or renown, and the imposts which are irksome to the rich are fatal to him.†   (source)
  • Consider also the devilish brilliance and beauty of many of its most remorseless tribes, as the dainty embellished shape of many species of sharks.†   (source)
  • They softened and embellished the aspect of the old house; although the shadows fell deeper into the angles of its many gables, and lay brooding under the projecting story, and within the half-open door.†   (source)
  • We are to dignify to each other the daily needs and offices of man's life, and embellish it by courage, wisdom and unity.†   (source)
  • To have you as long as possible near me, to hear your eloquent speech,—which embellishes my mind, strengthens my soul, and makes my whole frame capable of great and terrible things, if I should ever be free,—so fills my whole existence, that the despair to which I was just on the point of yielding when I knew you, has no longer any hold over me; and this—this is my fortune—not chimerical, but actual.†   (source)
  • The motive that prompts the decoration, at whatever cost, of interiors in colder climes suggested to the Oriental the embellishment of his house-top.†   (source)
  • His words were brief and expressive, conveying all that was meant, and no more; no embellishments, no embroidery, no arabesques.†   (source)
  • …and bluish backs plus brown pectorals trimmed in gray piping, a species of butterfish called the fiatola decked out in thin gold stripes and the three colors of the French flag, Montague blennies four decimeters long, superb jacks handsomely embellished by seven black crosswise streaks with blue and yellow fins plus gold and silver scales, snooks, standard mullet with yellow heads, parrotfish, wrasse, triggerfish, gobies, etc., plus a thousand other fish common to the oceans we had…†   (source)
  • Why must morality and truth never be offered in their crude form, but only with embellishments, sweetened and gilded like pills?†   (source)
  • Among the rest, she converted the pantry into a dressing-room for me; and purchased and embellished a bedstead for my occupation, which looked as like a bookcase in the daytime as a bedstead could.†   (source)
  • She gazed concernedly at the dusky fingers she held in her own, and also at her dress; which she feared had gained no embellishment from its contact with his.†   (source)
  • Shortly after our return to Rockburg, my wife drew my attention to the somewhat neglected state of our dear old summer residence at Falconhurst, begging me to devote some time to its restoration and embellishment.†   (source)
  • His shorter trust, however, terminating at the cab, he deposits him there; and the fair Judy takes her place beside him, and the chair embellishes the roof, and Mr. George takes the vacant place upon the box.†   (source)
  • Her mother had stitched and embroidered them herself; she had lavished on them all the delicacies of her art of embroideress, and all the embellishments of a robe for the good Virgin.†   (source)
  • In the evening especially its argand lamp is lit up and the red and green jars that embellish his shop-front throw far across the street their two streams of colour; then across them as if in Bengal lights is seen the shadow of the chemist leaning over his desk.†   (source)
  • She heard it all under embellishment.†   (source)
  • Tellson's (they said) wanted no elbow-room, Tellson's wanted no light, Tellson's wanted no embellishment.†   (source)
  • His uncle made him sit down, and said: "We have been hearing about your adventure, Tom, with a handsome lie added for embellishment.†   (source)
  • And Troy's deformities lay deep down from a woman's vision, whilst his embellishments were upon the very surface; thus contrasting with homely Oak, whose defects were patent to the blindest, and whose virtues were as metals in a mine.†   (source)
  • Mrs. Penniman took a discriminating view of her niece's journey; it seemed to her very proper that Mr. Townsend's destined bride should wish to embellish her mind by a foreign tour.†   (source)
  • Even the forests appeared to be slumbering in the sun, and a few piles of fleecy clouds had lain for hours along the northern horizon like fixtures in the atmosphere, placed there purely to embellish the scene.†   (source)
  • In the meantime, the forest began to change its hues, losing that lively green which had embellished its arches, in the graver light which is the usual precursor of the close of day.†   (source)
  • What seemed to gratify him and flatter his self-love most was to play the ridiculous part of the injured husband, and to parade his woes with embellishments.†   (source)
  • It suddenly came upon her that her situation was one which a few weeks ago she would have deemed deeply romantic: the park of an old English country-house, with the foreground embellished by a "great" (as she supposed) nobleman in the act of making love to a young lady who, on careful inspection, should be found to present remarkable analogies with herself.†   (source)
  • 'Yes, I think it rather pretty,' said the beadle, glancing proudly downwards at the large brass buttons which embellished his coat.†   (source)
  • The chisel had made three or four of these attempts at embellishment over his nose, but had given them up without an effort to smooth them off.†   (source)
  • [*] [*] The pursuit of a bee-hunter is not uncommon, on the skirts of American society, though it is a little embellished here.†   (source)
  • All sorts of rumours will get about directly, and everybody who has a grudge against us will take care to embellish these rumours.†   (source)
  • Javert was the first to alight; he made sure with one glance of the number on the carriage gate, and, raising the heavy knocker of beaten iron, embellished in the old style, with a male goat and a satyr confronting each other, he gave a violent peal.†   (source)
  • At length, the door opened, and Ralph himself, divested of his boots, and ceremoniously embellished with black silks and shoes, presented his crafty face.†   (source)
  • He has occasional employment on the same newspaper, in getting up the facts of dry subjects, to be written about and embellished by more fertile minds.†   (source)
  • His account was both clear and short, nor was it embellished by any incidents that did not directly concern the history of his departure from the villages of his people, and his arrival in the valley of the Susquehannah.†   (source)
  • Clym started up, and Susan smiled in an expectant way which did not embellish her face; it seemed to mean, "Something sinister is coming!"†   (source)
  • In his epistolary communication, as in his dialogues and discourses on the great question to which it related, Mr Dorrit surrounded the subject with flourishes, as writing-masters embellish copy-books and ciphering-books: where the titles of the elementary rules of arithmetic diverge into swans, eagles, griffins, and other calligraphic recreations, and where the capital letters go out of their minds and bodies into ecstasies of pen and ink.†   (source)
  • In the morning, Oliver would be a-foot by six o'clock, roaming the fields, and plundering the hedges, far and wide, for nosegays of wild flowers, with which he would return laden, home; and which it took great care and consideration to arrange, to the best advantage, for the embellishment of the breakfast-table.†   (source)
  • Mr. Jerry Cruncher's name, therefore, duly embellished the doorpost down below; and, as the afternoon shadows deepened, the owner of that name himself appeared, from overlooking a painter whom Doctor Manette had employed to add to the list the name of Charles Evremonde, called Darnay.†   (source)
  • And this is constituted of those persons in whom heroic dispositions are native, with the love of beauty, the delight in society, and the power to embellish the passing day.†   (source)
  • …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?†   (source)
  • In the vignettes and other embellishments of some ancient books you will at times meet with very curious touches at the whale, where all manner of spouts, jets d'eau, hot springs and cold, Saratoga and Baden-Baden, come bubbling up from his unexhausted brain.†   (source)
  • Had it been now a catamount, or even a full-size panther, I would have embellished a performance for you worth regarding.†   (source)
  • …of this world with generous feelings, to inspire men with a scorn of mere temporal advantage, to give birth to living convictions, and to keep alive the spirit of honorable devotedness; if you hold it to be a good thing to refine the habits, to embellish the manners, to cultivate the arts of a nation, and to promote the love of poetry, of beauty, and of renown; if you would constitute a people not unfitted to act with power upon all other nations, nor unprepared for those high…†   (source)
  • But though the manners of aristocracy did not constitute virtue, they sometimes embellish virtue itself.†   (source)
  • Besides this there were against the four columns of the town hall four kinds of poles, each bearing a small standard of greenish cloth, embellished with inscriptions in gold letters.†   (source)
  • "What I would say is this," resumed the trapper, who was far from understanding all the subtle distinctions with which his more learned companion so often saw fit to embellish his discourse; "there is but one birth and one death to all things, be it hound, or be it deer; be it red skin, or be it white.†   (source)
  • Volumnia has taken Mrs. Rouncewell's place in the meantime, though pearl necklaces and rouge pots, however calculated to embellish Bath, are but indifferent comforts to the invalid under present circumstances.†   (source)
  • It was characteristic of Mrs. Penniman that she related this fact, not in the least out of malignity to Catherine, whom she very sufficiently pitied, but simply from a natural disposition to embellish any subject that she touched.†   (source)
  • As for Tom's Bible, though it had no annotations and helps in margin from learned commentators, still it had been embellished with certain way-marks and guide-boards of Tom's own invention, and which helped him more than the most learned expositions could have done.†   (source)
  • …she took considerable interest in the young couple was manifest from the very long lectures on housewifery with which she was so obliging as to entertain Mrs Browdie's private ear, which were illustrated by various references to the domestic economy of the cottage, in which (those duties falling exclusively upon Kate) the good lady had about as much share, either in theory or practice, as any one of the statues of the Twelve Apostles which embellish the exterior of St Paul's Cathedral.†   (source)
  • The white night-cap, embellished with two peacock's feathers and a pigtail bolt upright, in which Signor Jupe had that very afternoon enlivened the varied performances with his chaste Shaksperean quips and retorts, hung upon a nail; but no other portion of his wardrobe, or other token of himself or his pursuits, was to be seen anywhere.†   (source)
  • One old Sag-Harbor whaleman's chief reason for questioning the Hebrew story was this:—He had one of those quaint old-fashioned Bibles, embellished with curious, unscientific plates; one of which represented Jonah's whale with two spouts in his head—a peculiarity only true with respect to a species of the Leviathan (the Right Whale, and the varieties of that order), concerning which the fishermen have this saying, "A penny roll would choke him"; his swallow is so very small.†   (source)
  • When we had finished and had our little dessert before us, embellished by the hands of my dear, who would yield the superintendence of everything prepared for me to no one, Miss Flite was so very chatty and happy that I thought I would lead her to her own history, as she was always pleased to talk about herself.†   (source)
  • The form and the substance of human actions often, therefore, stand in closer relation; and if the great picture of human life be less embellished, it is more true.†   (source)
  • See," he added, pointing to a place where the water trickled from a rock, forming a little crystal spring, before it found an issue through the adjacent crevices; "you may easily get rid of the Sagamore's daub, and when you come back I will try my hand at a new embellishment.†   (source)
  • And he looked at her, smiling, from head to foot; though it did not appear, afterwards, that he agreed with Mrs. Penniman (who, womanlike, went more into details) in thinking her embellished.†   (source)
  • Beautifully kept, it was ugly in itself, and had little but cleanliness and air to set it off; for what embellishment she had ever been able to buy, had gone to her father's room.†   (source)
  • 'Salt meat and new rum; pease-pudding and chaff-biscuits,' said the manager, taking a whiff at his pipe to keep it alight, and returning to his work of embellishment.†   (source)
  • The sun was beginning to fall, and a sheet of golden light was spread over the placid plain, lending to its even surface those glorious tints and hues, that, the human imagination is apt to conceive, forms the embellishment of still more imposing scenes.†   (source)
  • This act would not be a little patch on the face of his reputation to embellish it, but a very malignant ulcer to disfigure it.†   (source)
  • Having uttered which, with great distinctness, she begged the favour of being shown to her room, which became to me from that time forth a place of awe and dread, wherein the two black boxes were never seen open or known to be left unlocked, and where (for I peeped in once or twice when she was out) numerous little steel fetters and rivets, with which Miss Murdstone embellished herself when she was dressed, generally hung upon the looking-glass in formidable array.†   (source)
  • 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.†   (source)
  • Some have thought that this sort of delineation, embellished with all the physical and inanimate objects which cover the earth, was the kind of poetry peculiar to democratic ages; but I believe this to be an error, and that it only belongs to a period of transition.†   (source)
  • Then is there a singular kind of parallel between her and the little glass chandeliers of another age embellishing that assembly-room, which, with their meagre stems, their spare little drops, their disappointing knobs where no drops are, their bare little stalks from which knobs and drops have both departed, and their little feeble prismatic twinkling, all seem Volumnias.†   (source)
  • The curtained windows clouded the Break of Day, but it seemed light and warm, and it announced in legible inscriptions with appropriate pictorial embellishment of billiard cue and ball, that at the Break of Day one could play billiards; that there one could find meat, drink, and lodgings, whether one came on horseback, or came on foot; and that it kept good wines, liqueurs, and brandy.†   (source)
  • The walls were embellished with engravings swathed in pink gauze, and the tables ornamented with volumes of extracts from the poets, usually bound in black cloth stamped with florid designs in jaundiced gilt.†   (source)
  • Housings and caparisons of all sorts; some of damask cloth, of fine cloth of gold, furred with sables; others of velvet, furred with ermine; others all embellished with goldsmith's work and large bells of gold and silver!†   (source)
  • To the north stretched the limpid, and, as it appeared from that dizzy height, the narrow sheet of the "holy lake," indented with numberless bays, embellished by fantastic headlands, and dotted with countless islands.†   (source)
  • Various little presents to Mrs Nickleby, always of the very things they most required, tended in no slight degree to the improvement and embellishment of the cottage.†   (source)
  • Then, this room was embellished with a muslin curtain, and that room was rendered quite elegant by a window-blind, and such improvements were made, as no one would have supposed possible.†   (source)
  • A girl, selected for the task by her rank and qualifications, commenced by modest allusions to the qualities of the deceased warrior, embellishing her expressions with those oriental images that the Indians have probably brought with them from the extremes of the other continent, and which form of themselves a link to connect the ancient histories of the two worlds.†   (source)
  • While he was still dwelling on the last note, and embellishing it with a prolonged flourish, a dirty hand was observed to glide stealthily and swiftly along the top of the wall, as if in pursuit of a fly, and then to clasp with the utmost dexterity one of the old gentleman's ankles.†   (source)
  • While this address was in course of delivery, the old gentleman, with his nose and cheeks embellished with large patches of soot, sat upon the ground with his arms folded, eyeing the spectators in profound silence, and with a very majestic demeanour.†   (source)
  • …and the Gentleman in the Small-clothes next Door Ever since her last momentous conversation with her son, Mrs Nickleby had begun to display unusual care in the adornment of her person, gradually superadding to those staid and matronly habiliments, which had, up to that time, formed her ordinary attire, a variety of embellishments and decorations, slight perhaps in themselves, but, taken together, and considered with reference to the subject of her disclosure, of no mean importance.†   (source)
  • …in the shortest time all that I have learnt in so many years, and with so many troubles and dangers; which work I have not embellished with swelling or magnificent words, nor stuffed with rounded periods, nor with any extrinsic allurements or adornments whatever, with which so many are accustomed to embellish their works; for I have wished either that no honour should be given it, or else that the truth of the matter and the weightiness of the theme shall make it acceptable.†   (source)
  • 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.†   (source)
  • 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.†   (source)
  • …seeing that it is not possible for me to make a better gift than to offer you the opportunity of understanding in the shortest time all that I have learnt in so many years, and with so many troubles and dangers; which work I have not embellished with swelling or magnificent words, nor stuffed with rounded periods, nor with any extrinsic allurements or adornments whatever, with which so many are accustomed to embellish their works; for I have wished either that no honour should…†   (source)
  • 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.†   (source)
  • I wonder whether we would have loved the weaker, flawed, unembellished version.†   (source)
    standard prefix: The prefix "un-" in unembellished means not and reverses the meaning of embellished. This is the same pattern you see in words like unhappy, unknown, and unlucky.
  • Unlike the waifish, cookie-cutter blondes that adorned Harvard dorm room walls, this woman was healthy with an unembellished beauty and genuineness that radiated a striking personal confidence.†   (source)
  • The frontal swagger of the gangs, a culture of nearly princely hauteur but with bodings, of course, of unembellished threat, and this is what Acey examined surgically, working the details, looking for traces of the solitaire, the young man isolated from his own moody pose.†   (source)
  • Unembellished by any violence of gesticulation, this might have seemed no very high compliment to the lady's charms; but, as Mr. Bumble accompanied the threat with many warlike gestures, she was much touched with this proof of his devotion, and protested, with great admiration, that he was indeed a dove.†   (source)
  • It appeared from the unembellished statement of David, that his own presence had been rather endured than desired; though even Magua had not been entirely exempt from that veneration with which the Indians regard those whom the Great Spirit had visited in their intellects.†   (source)
  • The voice of penance and of grief came slow, embellished, tremulous.†   (source)
  • BLOOM: Embellish (beautify) suburban gardens.†   (source)
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