embroider
/ɪmˈbrɔɪdər/verb
decorate fabric with ornamental needlework
From Anglo-French, ultimately Germanic embroid (to decorate with stitching).
Lineage
The story
The word arrived in English in the late 14th century wearing a French outfit: Anglo-French enbrouder, with en- meaning “in” and a verb for ornamental stitching. Its deeper ancestry is less tidy than the stitches it describes. Etymonline traces that verb to reconstructed Proto-Germanic *bruzdajan, while Wiktionary gives competing Germanic pathways and warns that the exact route is uncertain. Around 1600, English switched to the -oi- spelling, perhaps nudged by broiden, an irregular past participle of braid. So even the word for careful decoration has a history with a loose thread.
Words from the same roots
embroid · Anglo-French, ultimately Germanic, ‘to decorate with stitching’
Derivedembroidery, embroidered, embroiderer