From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Embellishment \Em*bel"lish*ment\, noun [Cf. F. embellissement.]
1. The act of adorning, or the state of being adorned; adornment.
In the selection of their ground, as well as in the embellishment of it. --Prescott.
2. That which adds beauty or elegance; ornament; decoration; as, pictorial embellishments.
The graces and embellishments of the exterior man. --I. Taylor.
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
noun
1: elaboration of an interpretation by the use of decorative (sometimes fictitious) detail; "the mystery has been heightened by many embellishments in subsequent retellings" [syn: {embroidery}]
2: a superfluous ornament
3: the act of adding extraneous decorations to something [syn: {ornamentation}]
From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:
101 Moby Thesaurus words for "embellishment": acciaccatura, adjunct, adornment, appoggiatura, arabesque, arrangement, beauties, beautification, bedizenment, cadence, cadenza, color, color patterns, coloratura, coloring, colors, colors of rhetoric, decor, decoration, development, division, duplication, duplication of effort, elaboration, elegant variation, emblazonment, emblazonry, embroidery, enhancement, evolution, exaggeration, expletive, extravagance, fat, featherbedding, figure, figure of speech, filling, fine writing, fioritura, flight, floridity, floridness, flourish, flower arrangement, floweriness, flowers of speech, frill, frills, frippery, furniture arrangement, garnish, garnishment, garniture, gilding, gingerbread, grace, grace note, hyperbole, illumination, incidental, incidental note, long mordent, lushness, luxuriance, luxury, maturation, mordent, needlessness, ornament, ornamentation, ostentation, overadornment, overlap, overstatement, padding, passage, payroll padding, perfection, pleonasm, pralltriller, prolixity, purple patches, redundance, redundancy, refinement, ripening, roulade, run, seasoning, single mordent, superfluity, superfluousness, tautology, tinsel, trim, trimming, turn, unnecessariness, verbosity, window dressing
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