(in French, broderie). To embroider signifies properly to surround with an edge or border, but more generally to adorn with figures of needlework. The art of embroidery was practised at a very early period. In Exodus we are told that Ahiah was "an embroiderer in blue and in purple and in scarlet and fine linen;" and long before the Trojan war the women of Sidon had acquired celebrity for their skill in this art. The Greeks ascribed the invention of it to Minerva, but it is probable that they derived their knowledge of it from the Phrygians. The Grecian women attained to such a degree of skill in this art, that their performances were said to rival the finest paintings.

Embroidery is wrought upon stuffs or muslin by means of a needle and various kinds of thread. When it is done upon stuffs, the threads are of silk, cotton, wool, gold, and silver; and the work is sometimes adorned with spangles, mock or real pearls, &c. This species of embroidery is wrought on a kind of loom or frame. In muslin embroidery the muslin is stretched on a pattern already designed, and the thread is of cotton. The modes of embroidering are extremely various, and a minute description of them would be uninteresting to the general reader.

According to the census report of 1851, the number of females so employed in England was 2521, and in Scotland 2071; while in Ireland, for which no returns have been made the number is vastly greater; one house in Glasgow alone affording employment to upwards of 3000 hands in that country. The introduction in 1834 of a machine, by means of which the most difficult patterns may be brought with the greatest facility by 120 needles all in motion at once, has considerably affected this art as a trade, and will doubtless in a great measure supersede it. As a description of this interesting machine could not be made intelligible without illustrations, we must refer to Ure's Dictionary of Arts, &c.