[f. EMBRACE v.2]
1. The action of folding in the arms, of pressing to the bosom. (Sometimes euphemistically for sexual intercourse.)
1592. Shaks., Rom. & Jul., V. iii. 113. Armes, take your last embrace.
1633. P. Fletcher, Elisa, II. v. Arms, whose … sweet embraces Could quicken death.
1667. Milton, P. L., II. 793. In embraces forcible and foule Ingendring with me.
1750. Johnson, Rambl., No. 91, ¶ 7. Pride … by whose embraces she had two daughters.
1810. Southey, Kehama, XVII. ix. She turn’d from him, to meet … The Glendoveer’s embrace.
1866. Trollope, Belton Est., III. i. 13. The demonstrative affection of an embrace between the two women.
2. transf. and fig.
a. 1628. Sir J. Beaumont, Mis. State Man. The soule perswaded that no fading loue Can equall her imbraces.
1634. Habington, Castara, 75. Their streames thus Rivers joyne, And lose themselves in the embrace.
1665. Glanvill, Sceps. Sci., xiv. 83. Offering themselves to its [Truth’s] embraces.
1856. Stanley, Sinai & Pal. (1858), Introd. 42. Rocks … enclosing, in a still narrower and narrower embrace, a valley.
1855. Bain, Senses & Int., II. ii. § 12 (1864), 201. The most perfect combination of perceiving organs is the embrace of the two hands.
