chainwork

[ cheyn-wurk ]

noun

1. any decorative product, handiwork, etc., in which parts are looped or woven together, like the links of a chain.

Word History and Origins

Origin of chainwork¹

First recorded in 1545–55; chain + work

Example Sentences

They were presently strolling along the stone-paved esplanade, with its granite posts connected by loops of one continuous iron chainwork.

From Project Gutenberg

At its end the knight is often locked in plates from head to foot, no chainwork showing save the camail edge under the helm and the fringe of the mail skirt or hawberk.

From Project Gutenberg

The back part is composed of an intricate kind of chainwork, which bends when the book is opened, and the sides are embossed with a variety of devices.

From Project Gutenberg

They have once had an arcade of low wide arches traced on their surface, the spandrils filled with leafage, and archivolts enriched with studded chainwork and with crosses in their centres.

From Project Gutenberg

Upon these profoundly studied outlines, as remarkable for their grace and complexity as the general mass of the capital is for solid strength and proportion to its necessary service, the braided work is wrought with more than usual care; perhaps, as suggested by the Marchese Selvatico, with some idea of imitating those “nets of chequerwork and wreaths of chainwork” on the chapiters of Solomon’s temple, which are, I suppose, the first instances on record of an ornamentation of this kind thus applied.

From Project Gutenberg