emboss

From Middle English embossen, embosen, embocen, from Old French embocer, equivalent to em- +‎ boss (“a lump; bump; protuberance”).

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• Rhymes: -ɒs

emboss (third-person singular simple present embosses, present participle embossing, simple past and past participle embossed)

1. (transitive) To mark or decorate with a raised design or symbol.

   The papers weren't official until the seal had been embossed on them.

2. (transitive) To raise in relief from a surface, as an ornament, a head on a coin, etc.
   • (Can we date this quote?) Dryden

     Then o'er the lofty gate his art embossed / Androgeo's death.

   • (Can we date this quote?), Sir Walter Scott

     Exhibiting flowers in their natural colour embossed upon a purple ground.

Perhaps from em- +‎ Old French bos, bois (“wood”). Compare imbosk.

emboss (third-person singular simple present embosses, present participle embossing, simple past and past participle embossed)

1. (obsolete) Of a hunted animal: to take shelter in a wood or forest.
2. (obsolete) To drive (an animal) to extremity; to exhaust, to make foam at the mouth.
   • 1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 11, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes, […], book II, printed at London: By Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], OCLC 946730821:

     And as it commonly happens, that when the Stag begins to be embost, and finds his strength to faile-him, having no other remedie left him, doth yeeld and bequeath himselfe unto us that pursue him, with teares suing to us for mercie […].

3. (obsolete) To hide or conceal in a thicket; to imbosk; to enclose, shelter, or shroud in a wood.
   • (Can we date this quote?) John Milton

     in the Arabian woods embossed

4. (obsolete) To surround; to ensheath; to immerse; to beset.
   • (Can we date this quote?) Edmund Spenser

     A knight her met in mighty arms embossed.

• besoms