checkerwork

English

Alternative forms

• chequerwork

Etymology

checker +‎ work

Noun

checkerwork (countable and uncountable, plural checkerworks)

1. Work consisting of or showing checkers, varied alternately by colour or material.
2. (figuratively) Any aggregate of varied vicissitudes.
   • 1719 May 6 (Gregorian calendar), [Daniel Defoe], The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, […], London: […] W[illiam] Taylor […], →OCLC:

     How strange a checkerwork of Providence is the life of man.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “checkerwork”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)