embrace
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ɛmˈbɹes/
ipa: /ɛmˈbɹeɪs/
ipa: /ɪmˈbɹeɪs/
rhymes: -eɪs
Forms: form: embraces
Etymology: The verb is derived from Middle English embracen (“to clasp in one's arms, embrace; to reach out eagerly for, welcome; to enfold, entwine; to ensnare, entangle; to twist, wrap around; to gird, put on; to lace; to be in or put into bonds; to put a shield on the arm; to grasp (a shield or spear); to acquire, take hold of; to receive; to undertake; to affect, influence; to incite; to unlawfully influence a jury; to surround; to conceal, cover; to shelter; to protect; to comfort; to comprehend, understand”) [and other forms], from Old French embracer, embracier (“to kiss”) (modern French embrasser (“to kiss; (dated) to embrace, hug”)), from Late Latin *imbracchiāre, from in- (prefix meaning ‘in, inside, within’)) + bracchium (“arm”). The English word is analysable as em- + brace. The noun is derived from the verb.
Senses: examples: text: [E]yes, looke your laſt, / Armes take your laſt embrace: and lips, O you / The doores of breath, ſeale with a righteous kiſſe / A dateleſſe bargain to ingroſſing death: […]
ref: c. 1591–1595 (date written), [William Shakespeare], […] Romeo and Iuliet. […] (Second Quarto), London: […] Thomas Creede, for Cuthbert Burby, […], published 1599, →OCLC, [Act V, scene iii]:
text: That Gentleman I mean to make the model of my Fortunes, and in his chaſt imbraces keep alive the memory of my loſt lovely Loveleſe: he is ſomewhat like him too.
ref: c. 1613–1616, Francis Beaumont, John Fletcher, “The Scornful Lady, a Comedy”, in Fifty Comedies and Tragedies. […], [part 1], London: […] J[ohn] Macock [and H. Hills], for John Martyn, Henry Herringman, and Richard Marriot, published 1679, →OCLC, Act III, scene i, page 72, column 1:
text: [A] long and affectionate embrace supplied the place of language in bidding each other adieu; […]
ref: 1803 (date written), [Jane Austen], chapter XIII, in Northanger Abbey; published in Northanger Abbey: And Persuasion. […], volume II, London: John Murray, […], 20 December 1817 (indicated as 1818), →OCLC, pages 269–270:
text: […] And tears are on the mother’s face,
⁠As parting with a long embrace
She enters other realms of love; […]
ref: 1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “Canto XXXIX”, in In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 60:
text: [A] delighted shout from the children swung him toward the door again. His sister, Mrs. Gerard, stood there in carriage gown and sables, radiant with surprise. "Phil! You! Exactly like you, Philip, to come strolling in from the antipodes—dear fellow!" recovering from the fraternal embrace and holding both lapels of his coat in her gloved hands.
ref: 1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, “His Own People”, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC, page 15:
glosses: An act of putting arms around someone and bringing the person close to the chest; a hug.
examples: text: When he reached the ridge the outlying fog crept across the summit, caught him in its embrace, and wrapped him from her gaze.
ref: 1882, Bret Harte, “[Flip: A California Romance] Chapter II”, in Flip; and Found at Blazing Star, Boston, Mass.; New York, N.Y.: Houghton, Mifflin and Company […], →OCLC, page 44:
text: We were now within the embrace of a broad bay flanked on either hand by a low promontory.
ref: 1896, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, “The Evil-looking Boatmen”, in The Island of Doctor Moreau (Heinemann’s Colonial Library of Popular Fiction; 52), London: William Heinemann, →OCLC; republished as The Island of Doctor Moreau: A Possibility, New York, N.Y.: Stone & Kimball, 1896, →OCLC, page 48:
glosses: An enclosure partially or fully surrounding someone or something.
examples: text: And it was the white blood which sent him to the minister, which rising in him for the last and final time, sent him against all reason and all reality, into the embrace of a chimera, a blind faith in something read in a printed Book.
ref: 1932, William Faulkner, chapter 19, in Light in August, [New York, N.Y.]: Harrison Smith & Robert Haas, →OCLC; republished London: Chatto & Windus, 1933, →OCLC, pages 424–425:
text: It then occurred to Barbara, and recurred more strongly after she had learned of Ricky's marriage and her sale of the school in England, her eager embrace of Islam, and the total handing over of her lot to Joe Ramdez, that there had been no secret state of mind in Ricky.
ref: 1965, Muriel Spark, “The Passionate Pilgrims”, in The Mandelbaum Gate, London: Macmillan, →OCLC; The Mandelbaum Gate (A Borzoi Book), 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Alfred A. Knopf, 1965, →OCLC, part 2, pages 293–294:
glosses: Full acceptance (of something).
examples: text: In India men are enjoined to be fully awake to the fact that they are in the closest relation to things around them, body and soul, and that they are to hail the morning sun, the flowing water, the fruitful earth, as the manifestation of the same living truth which holds them in its embrace.
ref: 1913 November, Rabindranath Tagore, “The Relation of the Individual to the Universe”, in Sādhanā: The Realisation of Life, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, →OCLC, page 8:
glosses: An act of enfolding or including.
Derived terms: deadly embrace
half-embrace
marital embrace