To embellish means to make something more attractive or interesting by adding extra details or decorations. When you embellish a story, you add colorful details that make it more exciting to hear, though you might exaggerate a bit. When an artist embellishes a picture, she might add decorative borders, extra colors, or fancy flourishes.

The word often suggests adding things that aren't strictly necessary but make something more appealing. A chef might embellish a cake with intricate frosting designs. A musician might embellish a simple melody with extra notes and flourishes. You might embellish a book report cover with drawings and decorative lettering.

Sometimes embellishment is wonderful: those elaborate borders in medieval manuscripts are beautiful embellishments. Other times, people embellish too much. If your friend embellishes the story of what happened at lunch until it barely resembles the truth, that's gone too far. The art is knowing when extra decoration enhances something and when it just makes it cluttered or misleading.

The related word embellishment refers to the decoration itself: “The costume designer added gold embellishments to the queen's robe.”