What's the difference between decorate and embellish?

Decorate


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To deck with that which is becoming, ornamental, or honorary; to adorn; to beautify; to embellish; as, to decorate the person; to decorate an edifice; to decorate a lawn with flowers; to decorate the mind with moral beauties; to decorate a hero with honors.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Behind her balcony, decorated with a flourishing pothos plant and a monarch butterfly chrysalis tied to a succulent with dental floss, sits the university’s power plant.
  • (2) "The proposed 'reform' is designed to legitimise this blatantly unfair, police state practice, while leaving the rest of the criminal procedure law as misleading decoration," said Professor Jerome Cohen, an expert on China at New York University's School of Law.
  • (3) Structural studies indicate that caveolae are decorated on their cytoplasmic surface by a unique array of filaments or strands that form striated coatings.
  • (4) The first-floor lounge is decorated in plush deep pink, with a mix of contemporary and neoclassical decor, and an antique dining table and chandelier.
  • (5) A small clinic consisting of 1 room decorated with pamphlets against AIDS, malaria, and other diseases was managed by the chief primary health care (PHC) assistant named Joseph.
  • (6) I also earned meals by decorating a wall in a local restaurant.
  • (7) CI evenly decorated the negatively charged surface of endothelial cells in the control brains, in contrast to markedly diminished iron binding capacity of endothelial cells in low pH-treated hemispheres.
  • (8) As expected, antibodies to actin decorated the microfilaments of the microvilli, giving rise to a very intense fluorescence.
  • (9) Men might not have frills and furbelows as women traditionally do, but they’ve got spurious function: knobs on their watches or extra pockets on their jackets that are just as decorative as anything women wear.” 6.
  • (10) Ornamental plants have long been used for indoor decoration.
  • (11) Richard Master is CEO and founder of MCS Industries, Inc, the leading US supplier of picture frames and decorative mirrors, with $170m in sales, 160 US employees and factories in Mexico and China.
  • (12) Microtubule depolymerization is associated with the binding of vinblastine in approximately molar stoichiometry to tubulin in microtubules with apparent low affinity, as determined by binding experiments with radiolabeled vinblastine and by the ability of vinblastine to inhibit DEAE-dextran decoration of microtubule surfaces.
  • (13) In fact, in keeping with its usual practice, the White House hasn't released any details about the menu, the decor, where dinner will be served or what Michelle Obama will wear and doesn't plan to until a few hours before Wednesday's event begins.
  • (14) He has decorated the former shop unit with a nautical theme.
  • (15) Ultra thin, even, and grainless tantalum films have been found effective in eliminating the charging artifacts caused by external fields, and the decoration artifacts caused by crystal growth as seen in gold films.
  • (16) Combined with gold-streptavidin, BHPP decorated the actin filament system at the light and electron microscopic level faithfully and with satisfactory density.
  • (17) The EPR data from [15N,2H]MTSL-S1 decorating fibers are combined with the fluorescence polarization data from the 1,5-IAEDANS-labeled fibers to map the global angular transition of the labeled cross-bridges due to nucleotide binding by an analytical method described in the accompanying paper [Burghardt, T. P., & Ajtai, K. (1992) Biochemistry (preceding paper in this issue)].
  • (18) Many families choose to decorate the coffin, either in the days leading up to the funeral or as part of the ceremony.
  • (19) Upon examination of the immunoreaction at the ultrastructural level, the ubiquitin antiserum decorated the cytokeratin filaments as well as MB filaments.
  • (20) For primary explorers, build habitats out of cardboard with sticky tape and get them to decorate their designs.

Embellish


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To make beautiful or elegant by ornaments; to decorate; to adorn; as, to embellish a book with pictures, a garden with shrubs and flowers, a narrative with striking anecdotes, or style with metaphors.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The symptom of penis captivus during sexual intercourse has had a largely hearsay existence in medical history, and rumour has embellished the drama of its occurrence.
  • (2) Soldado could have embellished his open-play haul just before that but glanced a header inches wide from a Paulinho cross.
  • (3) Hunt embellished it with a sad little joke about his repeated failure to interest James in his own pet projects: superfast broadband and local TV.
  • (4) There were occasional literal and verbal paraphasic errors, but no completion phenomenon, embellishment or significant echolalia.
  • (5) But the main focus will be attempts to revive Arab-Israeli peace talks along the lines of the 2002 Saudi initiative, as developed recently by King Abdullah of Jordan and embellished by Obama.
  • (6) By now, Galeano had an established voice as a writer, and he soon settled down to write a series of books that embellished the formula that had proved so successful with Open Veins, combining contemporary observations with historical anecdote.
  • (7) So if he embellished this, how can you believe the rest?
  • (8) Some analysts suspect political players have deliberately leaked information amid the jockeying for position; and that details – such as a claim that the two young women were wholly or semi-naked – may have been embellished for maximum damage.
  • (9) Thus both the selective loss of entire branches and the selective embellishment of others occur during the development of these somatosensory cortical structures.
  • (10) The basilica was rebuilt in the 12th century by Pope Innocent II and, at the end of the 13th century, Pietro Cavallini embellished the apse with six mosaic panels of scenes from the life of Mary.
  • (11) He embellished the party line with his own metaphors and rhetorical swirls.
  • (12) The general has a (perhaps embellished) reputation for monk-like asceticism, eating once a day and banning alcohol from his headquarters in Kabul.
  • (13) Survival and event-free rates in long-term follow-up period were markedly embellished by the types of prosthesis.
  • (14) This was a mature collection for sass & bide, neatly styled (a collaboration between Heidi Middleton, Sarah-Jane Clarke and renowned stylist Vanessa Traina) with its polished blazers, colour-blocked ensembles and embellished mini-dresses.
  • (15) The style even included high-collared blouses with "ties" that were inch-wide strips of material that clipped around the neck and were often embellished with a single fabric flower.
  • (16) The club denied it and a Ukip spokesman said he had played for the Tranmere schoolboy and youth teams, adding that the embellishment was an “innocent mistake” by a press officer.
  • (17) Third, the argument is embellished with emotive claims about how this ruling will fragment, chill, choke, censor, or somehow damage the internet.
  • (18) The embellishment comes from telling it over and over again, letting your brain seek out the funny.
  • (19) West Ham came close to embellishing their lead on the half-hour when Vaz Tê skittered down the right and cut the ball back to O'Neil, whose curling shot from the edge of the area forced a fine save from Marshall.
  • (20) He appears to be intolerant of workers who choose to embellish their bodies with works of art, however small or innocuous.