# embedding

Pronunciation: say "im-BED-ing" /ɪmˈbɛdɪŋ/

## Noun

1. The act or process of setting one thing firmly inside another so that it stays in place.
   - Simple: The way one thing is fixed firmly inside another so it stays in place.
   - _The embedding of fossils in rock can take thousands of years._
   - _Surgeons explained the embedding of the small device beneath the skin._
2. In machine learning, a vector of numbers representing a word, token, or other unit of text, built so that it captures the contexts the unit appears in.
   - Simple: A way of turning a word into a list of numbers that captures its meaning and use.
   - _The search engine compares the embedding of your query with stored document vectors._
   - _Word embeddings let the system group synonyms near one another._
4. In mathematics, a map that represents the containment of one structure inside another, in any of several technical senses.
   - Simple: In math, a map that shows one structure sitting inside another, in one of several exact ways.
   - _Every group admits an embedding into a group of permutations, so it can be studied as a set of rearrangements._
   - _Whether that map counts as an embedding depends on which structure the author requires it to respect._

## Verb

3. Present participle of embed. — present participle and gerund of embed
   - Simple: Present participle of embed. Use this -ing form when the action is happening now.
   - _The developer is embedding tracking code into every page._
   - _Engineers are embedding sensors throughout the new bridge._

## Other meanings

- (noun) A continuous map from one topological space into another that is a homeomorphism onto its image, where the image carries the subspace topology.
- (noun) A smooth map of one manifold onto a submanifold of another, with a smooth inverse defined on its image.
- (noun) In mathematics, a map from one metric space into another that keeps distances the same to within some factor, known as the distortion.
- (noun) A ring homomorphism between fields; the name reflects the fact that every such map is injective.
- (noun) Within a concrete category, an injective morphism that additionally satisfies an initiality condition.

## Origin

Formed from the verb "embed" combined with the suffix "-ing".

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/embedding (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).