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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."
