embracement

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English

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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Borrowed from Middle French embracement; equivalent to embrace +‎ -ment.

Noun

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embracement (countable and uncountable, plural embracements)

  1. A clasp in the arms; embrace.
  2. State of embracing, encompassing or including various items; inclusion.
    • 1903, Stewart Edward White, chapter 9, in The Forest[2], New York: The Outlook Company, page 105:
      The question of flies—using that, to a woodsman, eminently connotive word in its wide embracement of mosquitoes, sand-flies, deer-flies, black flies, and midges—is one much mooted in the craft.
  3. Act or state of embracing or accepting; willing acceptance.
    • 1666, George Alsop, “To my Brother”, in A Character of the Province of Mary-Land[3], London: Peter Dring, page 85:
      [] what Destiny has ordered I am resolved with an adventerous Resolution to subscribe to, and with a contented imbracement enjoy it.
    • 1784, John Brown, A Compendious History of the British Churches in England, Scotland, Ireland, and America[4], Glasgow, page 241:
      His embracement of Popery beginning to make a noise, he decoyed several of the most eminent Protestant clergymen in France to give assurances of the contrary.
    • 1994, Robert Alun Jones, Durkheim’s Imperative: “The Role of Humanities Faculty in the Information Technologies Revolution” in Brett Sutton (editor), Literary Texts in an Electronic Age: Scholarly Implications and Library Services, Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, p. 175,[5]
      [] I believe that it is this moral dimension of the division of intellectual labor that leads many of us to feel discomfort as we survey the detritus of our traditional roles, the havoc provoked by our attraction to and embracement of these powerful technologies.
  4. State of being contained; enclosure.
    • 1664, John Heydon, Theomagia[6], London: Henry Brome, Book III, p. 153:
      [] the Sun [] of himself, ever shineth and seeth all things, if his Beams be not stopt with a Cloud or some other thick imbracement []
    • 1904, Hall Caine, The Prodigal Son[7], London: Heinemann, Part 6, Chapter 8, p. 353:
      The Heath itself when they came to it was a white wilderness within the embracement of black rocks and mountains.

References

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