embed

[əmˈbɛd]

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embedded - embed

An embed is someone or something that is placed within a group or system. A journalist might embed with a military unit to report from the front lines.

When we say "embed," we often think of a reporter who joins an army unit or a team for a while, like a guest. This way, they can get a close look at what's really going on and share their findings with the public. Some people embed themselves in communities as researchers to study how things work from inside out. Embedding is a way to learn by being part of something instead of just watching from outside.

How common is "embed"?

Word embed is considered uncommon in modern English.
It appears most frequently in academic texts and less often in other writings.

Definitions

noun

An embedded reporter or journalist, such as a war reporter assigned to and travelling with a military unit, or a political reporter assigned to follow and report on the campaign of a candidate.
An element of an advertisement, etc. serving as a subliminal message.
An item embedded in another document.

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verb

To lay as in a bed; to lay in surrounding matter; to bed.
Example: to embed something in clay, mortar, or sand
(by extension) To include in surrounding matter.
Example: We wanted to embed our reporter with the Fifth Infantry Division, but the Army would have none of it.
To encapsulate within another document or data file.
Example: The instructions showed how to embed a chart from the spreadsheet within the wordprocessor document.
To define a one-to-one function from (one set) to another so that certain properties of the domain are preserved when considering the image as a subset of the codomain.