Embroidery

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ɪmˈbɹɔɪdəɹi/

Definitions

1. The art of decorating fabric using needle and thread to create ornamental designs or patterns
2. The craft of adorning cloth with threaded needles to form decorative patterns and artistic embellishments
3. Ornamental needlework applied to fabric surfaces to produce aesthetic designs through interlacing colored threads

Etymology: Embroidery comes from Middle French "embrouderie," built from the verb "embrouder" (to embroider) plus the suffix "-erie," which marks a craft, practice, or collective result. The verb itself is related to "broder," meaning to embroider or border, and that root connects to the notion of an edge or margin, the same idea that gave English "border." In other words, the earliest sense of the family is closer to working along the edge of cloth than to the richly pictorial needlework we now picture. English took the word from French, and it arrived with the sense of decorative stitching on fabric, where threads of different colours are interlaced to form patterns and images. The French ancestry explains why the word sounds so unlike its English relatives: the "-erie" ending is a French pattern that English borrowed in words such as "bakery" and "cutlery," where it likewise names a place or practice.

Synonyms: needlework, stitching