embedded

1. 1
   adjective

   Set firmly into a surrounding mass, or so deeply rooted as to be a fixed, inseparable part of something.

   Like a nail driven so far into wood that you cannot pull it back out.

   The fossil remained embedded in solid rock for millions of years.

   A distrust of outsiders was deeply embedded in the village's culture.

   Similarinbuilt

   Note

   Two worlds share this sense, the solid and the engineered. Darwin, in The Zoology of the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle (1839–1843), finds estuary shells embedded in clay. By the Stoneman requirements of 1980, an embedded target computer is one built into the larger system it serves and programmed from a separate host machine. In that technical use the near synonym is inbuilt: the part belongs to the whole rather than being merely stuck in it.

2. 2
   verb

   Simple past tense and past participle of embed.

   The journalist embedded with the troops for six weeks.

   Tiny bubbles were embedded throughout the hand-blown glass.

   Note

   One spelling does three jobs: the simple past, the participle after have or be, and the adjective. The final d of embed doubles before -ed. Most uses are transitive: you embed something in something, whether the surrounding matter is earth, a document or data file, or, in mathematics, a larger set. A reporter assigned to travel with a military unit is simply called an embed.

3. 3
   adjective

   Set partly into concrete or planted in the earth, leaving part of the object exposed above the surface.

   The flagpole stood firmly, its base embedded in a block of concrete.

   The stepping stones were embedded in the garden path.

   Similarset, fixed

4. 4
   adjective

   Describing an associated prime that is not minimal under inclusion: it has a proper sub-ideal that is itself an associated prime.

   The primary decomposition revealed an embedded prime contained strictly within the maximal ideal.

   Geometrically, an embedded prime corresponds to a component lying inside a larger one.

   Oppositeisolated

   Note

   Commutative algebra uses the word in a fixed pair with its opposite, isolated. The minimal associated primes of a module are isolated, and the rest are embedded. The adjective normally sits directly before prime or component, as in an embedded prime or an embedded component of a primary decomposition. It keeps only the image of one thing lying inside another from the everyday "set firmly in" sense, and nothing else.

Showing meanings only. Show all 4