embrace

1. (transitive) To clasp (someone or each other) in the arms with affection; to take in the arms; to hug.Examples: "There was no faynting faith in that Dogge, which when his Master by a mischaunce in hunting stumbled and fell toppling downe a deepe dytche beyng vnable to recouer of himselfe, the Dogge signifying his masters mishappe, reskue came, and he was hayled up by a rope, whom the Dogge seeying almost drawne up to the edge of the dytche, cheerefully saluted, leaping and skipping vpon his master as though he would haue imbraced hym, beying glad of his presence, whose longer absence he was lothe to lacke."; "I will imbrace him with a ſouldiour's arme, / That he ſhall ſhrinke vnder my curteſie, […]"; "And after the vprore was ceaſed, Paul called vnto him the diſciples, and imbraced them, & departed, for to go into Macedonia."Synonyms: fall on someone's necktransitive

2. (transitive, figuratively) To seize (something) eagerly or with alacrity; to accept or take up with cordiality; to welcome.Examples: "I wholeheartedly embrace the new legislation."; "The louer refused of his loue imbraceth death. [poem title]"; "I take it your owne buſineſſe cals on you, / And you embrace the occaſion to depart."figurativelytransitive

3. (transitive, figuratively) To submit to; to undergo.Examples: "What I haue done my ſafety vrg'd me to: / And I embrace this fortune patiently, / Since not to be auoided it fals on me."; "Faced with the most significant public health crisis in a century, the population has largely embraced the strict but essential government instructions on social distancing that have been carefully designed to protect lives and to curb the spread of COVID-19."Synonyms: acceptfigurativelytransitive

4. (transitive, also figuratively) To encircle; to enclose, to encompass.Examples: "Low at his foot a ſpacious Plain is plac't, / Between the Mountain and the Stream embrac't: / Which ſhade and ſhelter from the Hill derives, / While the kind River Wealth and Beauty gives; […]"; "But it was not this that conveyed the size of the steppe so much as the multiplicity of these nomadic encampments, cropping up wherever the eye rested, yet invariably separate by a mile or two from their neighbours. There were hundreds of them, and the sight, therefore, seemed to embrace hundreds of miles."Synonyms: entwine, surroundalsofigurativelytransitive

5. (transitive, figuratively) To enfold, to include (ideas, principles, etc.); to encompass.Examples: "Natural philosophy embraces many sciences."; "Not that my ſong, in ſuch a ſcanty ſpace, / So large a Subject fully can embrace: […]"; "The Man from Mars sat down again when Jill left. He did not pick up the picture book they had given him but simply waited in a fashion which may be described as "patient" only because human language does not embrace Martian attitudes."figurativelytransitive

6. (transitive, obsolete, rare) To fasten on, as armour.Examples: "VVho ſeeing him from far ſo fierce to pricke, / His warlike armes about him gan embrace, / And in the reſt his ready ſpeare did ſticke; […]"obsoleteraretransitive