to embrace: to wrap the arms around someone or something and hold them close
At its core this verb names a physical act: wrapping the arms around another and holding them close. It runs from the warm greeting embrace, as when Laban and later Esau run out to meet Jacob and throw their arms around him, to the lover's embrace in the Song of Songs, where the beloved's right arm holds the speaker close.
The word stretches well beyond affection, though. It can name desperate clinging: the poor in Job press themselves against a rock for lack of any other shelter, and the once-pampered in Lamentations clutch at ash heaps. It works figuratively too. Proverbs urges the reader to take hold of wisdom and hold her close, and in the same breath warns against clasping a stranger's body in adultery.
The same clasping gesture turned on oneself becomes a picture of idleness: the fool "folds his hands" and so eats his own flesh, that is, ruins himself by doing nothing. So one Hebrew word covers the whole range of clasping the arms, whether around a loved one, a rock, an idea, or one's own idle hands. A near neighbor is דָּבַק, which is less about the arms and more about sticking fast or staying loyally attached.