Basketwork
noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Material woven in the style of a basket. uncountable, usually
"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, 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."
- 2 The craft of making such material. uncountable, usually
"In one of his letters to Mrs [Madge] Kendal, Joseph [Merrick] mentioned that he hoped one day to be able to learn basket work. She promptly arranged for an instructor to teach him the craft."
Example
More examples"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, 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."
Etymology
From basket + -work.
More for "basketwork"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.