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needle-work. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
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English
Noun
needle-work (uncountable)
- Archaic form of needlework.
1639, Thomas Fuller, “Lewis arriveth in Cyprus; The conversion of the Tartarians hindred; The treachery of the Templars”, in The Historie of the Holy Warre, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Thomas Buck, one of the printers to the Universitie of Cambridge , →OCLC, book IV, page 189:And by them he ſent to their maſter a Tent, wherein the hiſtory of the Bible was as richly as curiouſly depicted in needle-work; […]
1726 October 28, [Jonathan Swift], “The Author, by a Lucky Accident, Finds Means to Leave Blefuscu; and, after Some Difficulties, Returns Safe to his Native Country.”, in Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. , volume I, London: Benj Motte, , →OCLC, part I (A Voyage to Lilliput), page 147:My Son Johnny, named ſo after his Uncle, was at the Grammar School, and a towardly Child. My daughter Betty (who is now well married, and has Children) was then at her Needle-Work.
1750, “Eleanora Grant appointed by the Magistrates Schoolmistress of Aberdeen”, in Aberdeen Journal; republished as “Extracts from the Aberdeen Journal”, in Antiquarian Gleanings from Aberdeenshire Records, compiled by Gavin Turreff, Aberdeen: George & Robert King; , 1859, page 243: […]—these are, therefore, advertising all who incline to be taught any manner of needle-work, washing, clear-starching, and many other parts of education, fit for accomplishing a gentlewoman, that they can have access to enter to the said Miss Eleanora Grant’s school in a fortnight hence, where they will be educate as above, and genteelly used by her and her doctrix.
1791 (date written), Mary Wollstonecraft, “Animadversions on Some of the Writers who have Rendered Women Objects of Pity, Bordering on Contempt”, in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects, 1st American edition, Boston, Mass.: Peter Edes for Thomas and Andrews, , published 1792, →OCLC, page 167:It moves my gall to hear a preacher deſcanting on dreſs and needle-work; […]
1814 May 9, [Jane Austen], chapter III, in Mansfield Park: , volume III, London: for T Egerton, , →OCLC, pages 58–59:Edmund watched the progress of her attention, and was amused and gratified by seeing how she gradually slackened in the needle-work, which, at the beginning[,] seemed to occupy her totally; […]
1842, [Katherine] Thomson, chapter XII, in Widows and Widowers. A Romance of Real Life., volume I, London: Richard Bentley, , →OCLC, page 256:You were at school, but I saw your needle-work, and your drawing; you need not be ashamed of either:—that you need not.
1849 May – 1850 November, Charles Dickens, “The Beginning of a Longer Journey”, in The Personal History of David Copperfield, London: Bradbury & Evans, , published 1850, →OCLC, page 516:A’most the moment as she lighted heer, all so desolate, she found (as she believed) a friend; a decent woman as spoke to her about the needle-work as she had been brought up to do, about finding plenty of it fur her, about a lodging fur the night, and making secret inquiration concerning of me and all at home, to-morrow.