embrace
Part of speech: verb
noun
Morphological type: derivation
Topics: law
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.
Base: brace
Affixes: em-
Inflected forms:
form: embraces
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: embracing
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: embraced
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: embraced
pos: verb
tags: past
form: imbrace
pos: verb
tags: alternative
form: embraces
pos: noun
tags: plural
Senses:
gloss: To clasp (someone or each other) in the arms with affection; to take in the arms; to hug.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: There was no faynting faith in that Dogge, which when his Master by a mischaunce in hunting stumbled and fell toppling downe a deepe dytche beyng vnable to recouer of himselfe, the Dogge signifying his masters mishappe, reskue came, and he was hayled up by a rope, whom the Dogge seeying almost drawne up to the edge of the dytche, cheerefully saluted, leaping and skipping vpon his master as though he would haue imbraced hym, beying glad of his presence, whose longer absence he was lothe to lacke.
I will imbrace him with a ſouldiour's arme, / That he ſhall ſhrinke vnder my curteſie, […]
And after the vprore was ceaſed, Paul called vnto him the diſciples, and imbraced them, & departed, for to go into Macedonia.
[…] Love, though not wholly blind, as Poets wrong him, yet having but one eye, as being born an Archer aiming, and that eye not the quickeſt in this dark region here below, which is not Loves proper ſphere, partly out of the ſimplicity, and credulity which is native to him, often deceiv'd, imbraces and comforts him with theſe obvious and ſuborned ſtriplings, as if they were his Mothers own Sons, for ſo he thinks them, while they ſuttly keep themſelves moſt on his blind ſide.
Theſe lulld by Nightingales imbraceing ſlept, / And on thir naked limbs the flourie roof / Showrd Roſes, which the Morn, repair'd.
Thou doſt reduce me when I err; thou ſtayeſt for me when I am dull; thou imbraceſt me when I return; thou teacheſt me when I am ignorant; […]
She clapped her hands and laughed, and tried to touch his head; but being too little, laughed again, and stood on tiptoe to embrace him. Then she began to drag him, in her childish eagerness, towards the door; and he, nothing loth to go, accompanied her.
There was no ambiguity in her relief and enthusiasm; she went up to him in a somewhat irresolute fashion, as if about to put out her hand; but they embraced instead, and stood for a moment yoked thus, absurdly relieved and delighted by the other’s presence.
We embrace to be embraced. We embrace our children to be folded in the arms of the future, to pass ourselves beyond death, to be transported. That is how it was when I embraced you, always.
gloss: To seize (something) eagerly or with alacrity; to accept or take up with cordiality; to welcome.
pos: verb
tags: figuratively
transitive
examples: I wholeheartedly embrace the new legislation.
The louer refused of his loue imbraceth death. [poem title]
I take it your owne buſineſſe cals on you, / And you embrace the occaſion to depart.
Theſe all died in faith, not hauing received the promiſes, but hauing ſeene them a farre off, and were perſwaded of them, and embraced them, and confeſſed that they were ſtrangers and pilgrims on the earth.
Let Ignorance a little while now muſe / On what is ſaid, and let him not refuſe / Good counſel to imbrace, leſt he remain / Still Ignorant of what's the chiefeſt gain.
[I]f a Man can be perſuaded and fully aſſur'd of any thing for a Truth, without having examin'd, what is there that he may not imbrace for Truth; and if he has given himſelf up to believe a Lye, what means is there left to recover one who can be aſſur'd without examining.
Thou hast shown me the means of revenge, and be assured I will embrace them.
Then she thought how, now, she would embrace again the faith she had abandoned, and walk again in the light from which, with Richard, she had so far fled.
gloss: To submit to; to undergo.
pos: verb
tags: figuratively
transitive
examples: What I haue done my ſafety vrg'd me to: / And I embrace this fortune patiently, / Since not to be auoided it fals on me.
Faced with the most significant public health crisis in a century, the population has largely embraced the strict but essential government instructions on social distancing that have been carefully designed to protect lives and to curb the spread of COVID-19.
gloss: To encircle; to enclose, to encompass.
pos: verb
tags: also
figuratively
transitive
examples: Low at his foot a ſpacious Plain is plac't, / Between the Mountain and the Stream embrac't: / Which ſhade and ſhelter from the Hill derives, / While the kind River Wealth and Beauty gives; […]
But it was not this that conveyed the size of the steppe so much as the multiplicity of these nomadic encampments, cropping up wherever the eye rested, yet invariably separate by a mile or two from their neighbours. There were hundreds of them, and the sight, therefore, seemed to embrace hundreds of miles.
gloss: To enfold, to include (ideas, principles, etc.); to encompass.
pos: verb
tags: figuratively
transitive
examples: Natural philosophy embraces many sciences.
Not that my ſong, in ſuch a ſcanty ſpace, / So large a Subject fully can embrace: […]
The Man from Mars sat down again when Jill left. He did not pick up the picture book they had given him but simply waited in a fashion which may be described as "patient" only because human language does not embrace Martian attitudes.
gloss: To fasten on, as armour.
pos: verb
tags: obsolete
rare
transitive
examples: VVho ſeeing him from far ſo fierce to pricke, / His warlike armes about him gan embrace, / And in the reſt his ready ſpeare did ſticke; […]
gloss: To accept (someone) as a friend; to accept (someone's) help gladly.
pos: verb
tags: figuratively
obsolete
transitive
examples: He bears himſelfe more proudlier, / Euen to my perſon, then I thought he would / When firſt I did embrace him.
gloss: To attempt to influence (a court, jury, etc.) corruptly; to practise embracery.
pos: verb
tags: figuratively
obsolete
transitive
examples: The puniſhment for the perſon embracing is by fine and impriſonment; and, for the juror ſo embraced, if it be by taking money, the puniſhment is (by divers ſtatutes of the reign of Edward III) perpetual infamy, impriſonment for a year, and forfeiture of the tenfold value.
gloss: An act of putting arms around someone and bringing the person close to the chest; a hug.
pos: noun
examples: [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: […]
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.
[A] long and affectionate embrace supplied the place of language in bidding each other adieu; […]
[…] And tears are on the mother’s face,
⁠As parting with a long embrace
She enters other realms of love; […]
[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.
gloss: An enclosure partially or fully surrounding someone or something.
pos: noun
tags: figuratively
examples: When he reached the ridge the outlying fog crept across the summit, caught him in its embrace, and wrapped him from her gaze.
We were now within the embrace of a broad bay flanked on either hand by a low promontory.
gloss: Full acceptance (of something).
pos: noun
tags: figuratively
examples: 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.
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.
gloss: An act of enfolding or including.
pos: noun
tags: figuratively
examples: 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.
Synonyms: accoll
amplect
beclip
clip
coll
strain
hold
complect
comply
cwtch
embrace
enfold
fall on someone's neck
glomp
halse
hug
infold
oxter
press
squeeze
umbeclap
Derived words: all-embracing
embraceability
embraceable
embrace, extend and extinguish
embracement
embraceor
embracer
embracery
embrace the penguin
embrace the suck
embracingly
embracive
overembrace
reembrace
re-embrace
unembraceable
unembraced
unembracing
half-embrace
deadly embrace
marital embrace
Translations: