The scenes of passion, atrocity, and revolution merely embroider movie-derived ideas of passion, et cetera.

NEWYORKER: Indochine

This cognitive difference permits them to make, and embroider, external representations of that world in other words, to create art.

ECONOMIST: Come up and see my etchings

We use it to operate the cooperative but competitive system of social exchange that is a society: to charm, forgive, manipulate, bewitch, embroider, exaggerate, diminish, disparage to choose just some of the verbs from the key paragraph of Dr. Pagel's (beautifully written) book.

WSJ: Matt Ridley on the Ideas in Mark Pagel's Wired for Culture | Mind & Matter