Definition

1. Verb:
   • To embroider (a story/facts): To add invented or exaggerated details to a narrative or description, often to make it more interesting, impressive, or deceptive. It implies embellishing or fabricating aspects of the truth.
   • To embellish / To gild: To decorate or enhance (a story, account, or image) with extra, often fanciful, details.

Usage Examples

• Verb:
  • Cậu bé thường tô vẽ thêm cho câu chuyện phiêu lưu của mình. (The boy often embroiders his adventure stories.)
  • Đừng tô vẽ sự thật, hãy kể lại chính xác những gì đã xảy ra. (Don't embellish the truth; tell exactly what happened.)
  • Bài báo đó đã tô vẽ quá mức về cuộc sống của người nổi tiếng. (That article overly gilded the life of the celebrity.)

Advanced Usage

• The term is almost exclusively used in a figurative sense related to speech, writing, or representation. It carries a generally negative connotation of distortion or misrepresentation, though it can sometimes be neutral, relating to artistic enhancement.

Variants and Related Words

• Thêu dệt (v): To fabricate, to concoct (a story). This is a stronger synonym, implying weaving a false narrative.
  • Câu chuyện hoàn toàn do hắn thêu dệt. (The story was completely fabricated by him.)

Synonyms

• Embellish: To make (a story) more interesting by adding extra details, especially ones that are not true.
• Exaggerate: To represent something as being larger, better, or worse than it really is.
• Garnish (figurative): To add details to; embellish.
• Fabricate: To invent or concoct (something), typically with deceitful intent.

Related Idioms

• Tô son điểm phấn: Literally "to apply lipstick and powder"; to prettify or whitewash. This idiom shares the concept of making something superficially more attractive, often to hide flaws.
  • Báo cáo chỉ tô son điểm phấn cho tình hình thực tế. (The report merely whitewashes the real situation.)

verb

1. to embroider