needle-work

needle-work (uncountable)

1. 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 [and sold by John Williams, London], →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; […]

   • 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, section II, page 167:

     It moves my gall to hear a preacher deſcanting on dreſs and needle-work; […]

   • 1814 July, [Jane Austen], chapter III, in Mansfield Park: […], volume III, London: […] T[homas] 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; […]

   • 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.