embracement

Noun

embracement (countable and uncountable, plural embracements)

1. An act of encircling another with one's arms and pulling them to one's chest, a hug.
   • Kinde wordes, and mutuall talke, makes our greefe greater.
     Therefore with dum imbracement let vs part,1594, Christopher Marlow[e], The Troublesome Raigne and Lamentable Death of Edward the Second, King of England: […], London: […] [Eliot’s Court Press] for Henry Bell, […], published 1622, →OCLC...
   • What was that but a kinde, tender, and fatherly farwell which he tooke of his children? representing the last adiewes, and parting imbracements [translating embrassemens], which at our death we give unto our dearest issues?1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 8, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC
2. (figuratively) The state of embracing, inclusion.
   • The question of flies—using that, to a woodsman, eminently connotive word in its wide embracement of mosquitoes, sand-flies, deer-flies, black flies, and midges—is one much mooted in the craft.1903, Stewart Edward White, chapter 9, in The Forest, New York: The Outlook Company, page 105
3. (figuratively) An act of embracing, full acceptance.
   • […] what Destiny has ordered I am resolved with an adventerous Resolution to subscribe to, and with a contented imbracement enjoy it.1666, George Alsop, “To my Brother”, in A Character of the Province of Mary-Land, London: Peter Dring, page 85
   • His embracement of Popery beginning to make a noise, he decoyed several of the most eminent Protestant clergymen in France to give assurances of the contrary.1784, John Brown, A Compendious History of the British Churches in England, Scotland, Ireland, and America, Glasgow, page 241
4. (figuratively) An enclosure.
   • […] the Sun […] of himself, ever shineth and seeth all things, if his Beams be not stopt with a Cloud or some other thick imbracement […]1664, John Heydon, Theomagia, London: Henry Brome, Book III, p. 153
   • The Heath itself when they came to it was a white wilderness within the embracement of black rocks and mountains.1904, Hall Caine, The Prodigal Son, London: Heinemann, Part 6, Chapter 8, p. 353