Also 4–6 enbos(s, 5 enboce. [prob. a. OF. *emboce-r (app. not recorded before 1530): see EN- and BOSS sb.1]
1. trans. To cause to bulge or swell out, make convex or protuberant; to cover with protuberances. In modern use chiefly transf. from 2 or 3.
α. c. 1460. Stans Puer, 31, in Babees Bk. (1868), 28. To enboce thy Iowis withe mete.
1541. R. Copland, Guydon’s Quest. Chirurg. Some [bones] are enbossed for to entre.
1598. Sylvester, Du Bartas, I. iii. (1641), 25/2. When God … Embas’t the Valleys, and Embost the Hils.
1683. Salmon, Doron Med., I. 334. Embossed with fat.
17[?]. Gay, Story of Arachne, 39. Her trembling hand, embossed with livid veins.
1763. Churchill, Proph. Famine, Poems I. 117. With boils embossed and overgrown with scurf.
1814. Southey, Roderick, XXI. 18. Its fretted roots Embossed the bank.
1868. Kirk, Chas. Bold, III. V. iii. 413. It is everywhere unequal, embossed with hill-tops.
β. 1664. Power, Exp. Philos., I. 13. Her Body is … imboss’d all over with black knobs.
1667. Milton, P. L., XII. 180. Botches and blaines must all his flesh imboss.
† b. fig. To emboss (out): to inflate (style), render tumid; to give exaggerated prominence to.
1564. Brief Exam., *iiij b. Ye embosse out your glorious stiles.
1565. Jewel, Repl. Harding (1611), 36. It hath pleased M. Harding thus to colour and to embosse out this ancient Father.
1577, 1646. [see EMBOSSED ppl. a.1 4].
† c. intr. To bulge, be convex. Obs. rare.
c. 1430. [see EMBOSSING vbl. sb.].
1576. Baker, Jewell of Health, 215 a. If the same be made hollowe imbossing towarde the myddle.
2. spec. To carve or mold in relief; to cause (figures, part of a wrought surface) to stand out, project or protrude. Also fig. The earliest and the prevailing mod. sense. [So Fr. imbocer (Palsgr.).]
α. c. 1385. Chaucer, L. G. W., Dido. Of gold the barris vp enbosede [v.r. enbossed].
1563. Homilies, II. Idolatry, II. (1859), 194. Images came into the Church, not now in painted cloths only, but embossed in stone.
1644. Evelyn, Mem. (1857), I. 76. Fleur-de-lis embossed out of the stone.
1796. Burke, Regic. Peace, Wks. 1842, II. 322/1. Such claims … stood embossed, and … forced themselves on the view of common, short-sighted benevolence.
1858. Hawthorne, Fr. & It. Jrnls., II. 37. A gold sword-hilt … being actually embossed on the picture.
1885. Manch. Exam., 5 June, 5/6. Farmer’s apparatus … for chasing, glazing, and embossing cloth.
β. 1612. Drayton, Poly-olb., v. 75.
| No Fish in this wide waste but exceeding cost | |
| Was there in Antique worke most curiously imbost. |
1676. Boyle, in Phil. Trans., XI. 807. The figure of a Star … imbost upon the upper superficies of the Regulus.
b. To adorn with figures or other ornamentation in relief; to represent (a subject) in relief. (Sometimes with reference to embroidery.) Also of the figures, etc.: To stand out as an ornament upon.
1430. Lydg., Chron. Troy, II. xx. An epythaphe … With letters ryche of golde aboue enboced.
1513. Bradshaw, St. Werburge, 60. The ten plages of Egypte were well embost.
1601. Holland, Pliny, II. 602. Siluer plate curiously enchased and imbossed.
1659. Bp. Walton, Consid. Considered, 299. How come they [Samaritan letters] to adorn and emboss vessels and coins?
1725. Pope, Odyss., XIX. 293. Regal robe with figured gold embost.
1781. Gibbon, Decl. & F., III. lx. 523. The sides were embossed with a variety of picturesque … scenes.
1832. Babbage, Econ. Manuf., xi. (ed. 3), 89. Calicoes … embossed all over with raised patterns.
1846. Prescott, Ferd. & Is., I. viii. 346. The rich bronze which embossed its gates.
1855. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., IV. 490. Men who … had made a fair profit by embossing silver bowls and chargers.
3. To ornament with or as with bosses or studs. Hence, To adorn or decorate sumptuously.
α. 1579. Spenser, Sheph. Cal., Feb. A girdle of gelt Embost with buegle.
1594. J. Dickenson, Arisbas (1878), 38. His house:… he found not gorgeously embost, yet gayly trimmed.
c. 1630. Drumm. of Hawth., Poems, Wks. (1711), 29/1. Bright Portals of the Sky, Emboss’d with sparkling Stars.
1697. Potter, Antiq. Greece, III. iii. (1715), 14. The Chariots of Princes and Heroes … being richly emboss’d with Gold and other Metals.
1710. Lond. Gaz., No. 4672/1. The Harness was embossed with Silver Plates.
1784. Cowper, Task, V. 426. The studs, that thick emboss his iron door.
1812. H. & J. Smith, Rej. Addr., xi. (1873), 104. Whose tresses the pearl-drops emboss.
1824–9. Landor, Imag. Conv. (1846), I. 5. Did we not … Emboss our bosoms with the daffodils.
β. 1578. T. Proctor, Gorg. Gallery. With buyldings brave, imbost of variant hue.
1784. Cowper, Task, I. 121. I fed on … berries that imboss the bramble.
