• embrace •
Pronunciation: em-brays • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Verb, noun
Meaning: 1. Hug, enclose with the arms as a show of affection. 2. Encircle, surround, enclose. 3. Completely, wholeheartedly accept.
Notes: Embrace comes with a personal noun, embracer, an action noun, embracement, and two adjectives, embracive and embraceable. Its antonym is disembrace "release from an embrace". In these times, when hugging has become commonplace, do you ever wonder what the difference is between hug and embrace?
In Play: Hugs can be given for simple reassurance, support: "The kind cop hugged the crying boy as the boy hugged his dog." The motivation for embrace is always love and affection with sexual overtones: "Wife and husband embraced at the airport when he returned home after a long absence." Embrace may be used figuratively, too: "Robin Banks openly embraced defunding the police."
Word History: Today's Good Word was borrowed, as usual, from Old French embracer (Modern French embrasser), comprising en- "in(to)" + brace "arm". The nasal consonant [n] in the prefix en- assimilates to [m] before bilabial (involving two lips) consonants [p, b, m]. Old French whittled brace (Modern French bras) down from Late Latin bracchium "arm, forearm", which Latin borrowed from Greek brakhion "shorter; (fore)arm", based on brakhus "short". Greek brakhus was converted from PIE mreghu- "short", which also went into the making of Latin brevis "short", and Old English myrge, today merry, and myrgeth, today mirth.
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