basketwork

plural basketworks · alternative basket work · alternative basket-work

1. uncountableusuallyMaterial woven in the style of a basket.

   Once again he leaned forward, his hands grasping the basket-work rim of his chair.

   1950, Mervyn Peake, chapter 50, in Gormenghast, London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, →OCLC

   3 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.

   [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, [...]

   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

   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.

   1915, Ford Madox Hueffer [i.e., Ford Madox Ford], chapter II, in The Good Soldier […], Harmondsworth, Middlesex [London]: Penguin Books, published 1972 (1982 printing), →ISBN, part III, page 126

   Synonyms: wicker, wickerwork

2. uncountableusuallyThe craft of making such material.

   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.

   1980, Michael Howell, Peter Ford, chapter 9, in The True History of the Elephant Man, Penguin, page 123

   Synonyms: basketry, basket weaving