imbellish
imbellish is the archaic form of embellish.
Meaning of embellish
Verb
embellish (third-person singular simple present embellishes, present participle embellishing, simple past and past participle embellished)
- To make more beautiful and attractive by adding ornamentation; to decorate.
- The old book cover was embellished with golden letters
- To enhance by adding something not strictly integral or necessary.
- A Scythian Shepherd, so imbelliſhed
With Natures pride, and richeſt furniture?
His looks do menace heauen & dare the Gods,
His fiery eies are fixt vpon the earth.c. 1587–1588 (date written), [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC...
- A Scythian Shepherd, so imbelliſhed
- To make something sound or look better or more acceptable than it is in reality; to distort, embroider, or even misrepresent or lie.
- to embellish a story, the truth
Forms of imbellish
| third-person singular present | imbellishes |
|---|---|
| present participle | imbellishing |
| past participle | imbellished |
| past | imbellished |
Questions about imbellish
- What is imbellish the archaic form of?
- Imbellish is the archaic form of embellish.
Words near imbellish in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: imbellish (page history and authors); embellish (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this entry: “imbellish.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/imbellish. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.