openwork

Definitions

  • WordNet 3.6
    • n openwork ornamental work (such as embroidery or latticework) having a pattern of openings
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Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary
    • Openwork (Mining) A quarry; an open cut.
    • Openwork Anything so constructed or manufactured (in needlework, carpentry, metal work, etc.) as to show openings through its substance; work that is perforated or pierced.
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Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
    • n openwork Any work, especially ornamental work, so made or manufactured as to show openings through its substance; specifically, fancy work done with thread of different kinds, such as knitting, netting, lace, and many kinds of embroidery; decoration of the simplest sort made with small openings set in regular patterns.
    • n openwork In fortification, a work or fortification which is not protected at the gorge by a parapet or otherwise.
    • n openwork In mining, a place where mining or quarrying is done open to the air, or uncovered by rock or earth. Also called open working and open-cast.
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Usage

In literature:

Dora wants some openwork stockings too and three books.
"A Young Girl's Diary" by An Anonymous Young Girl
The result was an openwork pattern heavily encrusted with beautiful fine embroidery.
"The Land of Footprints" by Stewart Edward White
Above this frieze, carved in openwork with extreme delicacy, was a marble basket, filled with red camellias.
"The Wandering Jew, Complete" by Eugene Sue
The chapel is quite unenclosed, except by an openwork balustrade of marble, on which the carving looks very ancient.
"Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Volume 2" by Nathaniel Hawthorne
De l'Isle, same year he made those great openwork gate' of Hotel St. Louis.
"The Flower of the Chapdelaines" by George W. Cable
It is surmounted by a crown wrought in openwork and of a fine effect.
"Rouen, It's History and Monuments" by Théodore Licquet
It has an openwork silver handle and guard; the blade sheathed in a white scabbard, which is silver-mounted.
"The False Chevalier" by William Douw Lighthall
The points interlap; and the cutting leaves odd-shaped openwork strips of steel for the scrap-heap.
"Makers of Many Things" by Eva March Tappan
She wore openwork stockings and high-heeled shoes, which had already suffered from walking along the dusty roads.
"The Moving Finger" by E. Phillips Oppenheim
The cheap lace looked like marble openwork artistically carved with a fine chisel.
"The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries" by Various
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In news:

Start with a handful of inexpensive costume pieces -- brooches and earrings with openwork designs -- and give them a new-old coppery patina using spray paint.
marthastewart.com
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In science:

Such block will to keep its form, and its butt-end surface will be washed by the water due to the rough OS as a solid/openworking surface, according to its own construction.
Skeletal Structures of the Ocean, Hypotheses and Interpretation of the Phenomenon
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