embellish vs alter

embellish and alter both are verbs.

Word	Noun	Adjective	Verb	Adverb
embellish	No	No	Yes	No
alter	No	No	Yes	No

As verbs, alter is a hypernym of embellish; that is, alter is a word with a broader meaning than embellish:

Other hypernyms of embellish include change, modify.

embellish (verb)	alter (verb)
make more beautiful	remove the ovaries of
add details to	become different in some particular way, without permanently losing one's or its former characteristics or essence
make more attractive by adding ornament, colour, etc.	cause to change; make different; cause a transformation
be beautiful to look at	insert words into texts, often falsifying it thereby
	make an alteration to