See also: basket-work and basket work

English edit

Etymology edit

basket +‎ work

Noun edit

basketwork (usually uncountable, plural basketworks)

  1. Material woven in the style of a basket.
    Synonyms: wicker, wickerwork
    • 1671, John Burbury, A Relation of the Journey of the Right Honourable My Lord Henry Howard from London to Vienna, and thence to Constantinople, London: T. Collins et al., p. 172,[1]
      The Village Walls resemble those in Hungary, but are something worse, being only long Stakes thrust into the Ground, and crossed through like Basket-work, and so dawbed all over on both sides with Mud and Dirt.
    • 1817 December 31 (indicated as 1818), [Walter Scott], chapter I, in Rob Roy. [], volume III, Edinburgh: [] James Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Co. []; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, →OCLC, page 14:
      [T]he smoke, having no means to escape but through a hole in the roof, eddied round the rafters of the cottage, and hung in sable folds at the height of about five feet from the floor. The space beneath was kept pretty clear, by innumerable currents of air which rushed towards the fire from the broken pannel of basket-work which served as a door, [...]
    • 1915, Ford Madox Hueffer [i.e., Ford Madox Ford], chapter II, in The Good Soldier: A Tale of Passion, London: John Lane, The Bodley Head; New York, N.Y.: John Lane Company, →OCLC; republished Harmondsworth, Middlesex [London]: Penguin Books, 1972 (1982 printing), →ISBN, part III, page 126:
      Once a week each of the girls, since there were seven of them, took a drive with the mother in the old basketwork chaise drawn by a very fat, very lumbering pony.
    • 1950, Mervyn Peake, chapter 50, in Gormenghast[2], Penguin, published 1969, page 324:
      Once again he leaned forward, his hands grasping the basket-work rim of his chair.
  2. The craft of making such material.
    Synonyms: basketry, basket weaving
    • 1980, Michael Howell, Peter Ford, chapter 9, in The True History of the Elephant Man[3], Penguin, page 123:
      In one of his letters to Mrs Kendal, Joseph mentioned that he hoped one day to be able to learn basket work. She promptly arranged for an instructor to teach him the craft.

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