the.com/embellishing
Where the truth gets a tailored suit and slightly too many cufflinks.
means Adding decorative or exaggerated details to make something more attractive or interesting, often stretching the plain facts in the process.
from From the Old French 'embelir,' to make beautiful, built from 'bel' — beautiful — the same root that gives us 'belle' and 'beauty,' ultimately from Latin 'bellus,' fine or pretty. So to embellish is literally to 'make beautiful,' which is why it can mean both honest ornamentation and the slightly less honest kind.
- origin
- From Latin 'bellus,' meaning beautiful or handsome
- medieval craft
- Monks gilded manuscripts with literal gold leaf
- fish factor
- Every caught fish grows an inch per retelling
- legal line
- Embellished resumes are grounds for firing
- brain trick
- Each recall lets memory quietly edit itself