strapwork

or strap-work

[ strap-wurk ]

noun

, Architecture.

1. a type of ornamentation imitating pierced and interlaced straps or bands, usually forming a geometric pattern.

Word History and Origins

Origin of strapwork¹

First recorded in 1750–60; strap ( def ) + work ( def )

Example Sentences

The vase was respected not for Höroldt’s mastery of polychrome enamels or the blue and gold interlacing strapwork and foliage, but for Uncle Clem, and the lives he had saved, the river he had crossed at midnight, and his death just a week before the Armistice.

From Literature

Gideon Mendelson takes the idea one smart step further, creating a bas-relief ceiling that puts a 21st-century spin on Elizabethan strapwork.

From Architectural Digest

Gideon Mendelson takes the idea one smart step further, creating a bas-relief ceiling that puts a 21st-century spin on Elizabethan strapwork.

From Architectural Digest

Just a little patch of strapwork in the middle of the waste.

From Project Gutenberg

The chief characteristics of Elizabethan architecture are: windows of great size both in the plane of the wall and deeply embayed, ceilings very richly decorated in relief, galleries of great length, very tall and highly-decorated chimneys, as well as a profuse use of ornamental strapwork in the parapets, window-heads, &c.

From Project Gutenberg