chainwork

• chain work, chain-work

From chain +‎ work.

chainwork (countable and uncountable, plural chainworks)

1. (countable, uncountable) Techniques of looping or linking pieces of metal or another materials in the manner of a chain; objects made using these techniques.
   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, 1 Kings 7:17:

     and wreathes of chaine worke, for the chapiters which were vpon the top of the pillars:

   • 1720, Daniel Defoe, Captain Singleton‎^[1], page 37:

     For one of the Bracelets made of Chain-work, we had as much Provision of several Sorts, as would fairly have been worth in England, Fifteen or Sixteen Pounds;

   • 1872, George Eliot, Middlemarch‎^[2], volume 2, page 43:

     […] she assented coldly, without adding an unnecessary word, some trivial chain-work which she had in her hands enabling her to avoid looking at Lydgate higher than his chin.

   • 1880, Fred Belton, chapter 11, in Random Recollections of an Old Actor‎^[3], page 211:

     […] she had a chain-work of coins encircling her hair, and falling completely round her face to her bosom,

   • 1930, Aldous Huxley, “The Rest Cure”, in Brief Candles‎^[4], page 114:

     The bag was made of gold chain-work; there were more than four thousand lire in it.

2. (countable, dated) A system in which each element is linked to two others in the manner of a chain; a series of interconnected things.

   Synonym: chain

   • 1840, Thomas De Quincey, “The Autobiography of an English Opium-Eater”, in Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine‎^[5], volume 7, page 767:

     The coherence and interdependency in the total chainwork of evidence, and the independent strength of each particular link, is little known to the public.

   • 1866, Morton Peto, chapter 3, in Resources and Prospects of America‎^[6], page 289:

     […] the great object to be accomplished is to bring the immense chainwork of Northern railroads into closer communication with the Southern system,

   • 1904, Mary Platt Parmele, chapter 26, in A Short History of Russia‎^[7], page 243:

     There are frightful energies beneath that adamantine surface—energies which have been confined by a rude, imperfectly organized system of force; a chain-work of abuses roughly welded together as occasion required.

   • 1968, Peter Menegas, chapter 11, in The Jacklove Affair‎^[8], page 143:

     A chainwork of suggestions followed. Everybody had an idea, and the ideas became more and more involved […]

3. (uncountable, surveying, dated) The technique of surveying by measuring distances with a chain.
   • 1886, W. Davis Haskoll, chapter 2, in Land and Marine Surveying‎^[9], 2nd edition, page 30:

     If all this agrees with the field book measurements, the chain work has been correctly done in the field and correctly plotted in the office.

   • 1964, T. W. Birch, chapter 4, in Maps Topographical and Statistical‎^[10], 2nd edition, pages 30-31:

     It seems incredible that chain work as here described should have played an important part in making national maps and plans.

   • 2009, Deirde C. Stam, “Introduction”, in Matthew A. Henson’s Historic Arctic Journey‎^[11], page 22:

     Once in Nicaragua, the young man soon began assisting Peary with “chain work” and other tasks relating to surveying.

• chainworks
• network