branchwork

English

Etymology

branch +‎ work

Noun

branchwork (countable and uncountable, plural branchworks)

1. (archaic) Collectively, the branches of a tree.
   • 1749, [John Cleland], “(Please specify the letter or volume)”, in Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure [Fanny Hill], London: […] G. Fenton [i.e., Fenton and Ralph Griffiths] […], →OCLC:

     and whose exquisite whiteness was not a little set off by a sprout of black curling hair round the root, through the jetty sprigs of which the fair skin shew'd as in a fine evening you may have remark'd the clear light ether throught the branchwork of distant trees over-topping the summit of a hill.

2. Any design or pattern resembling branches.
   • 1861, The Annals and Magazine of Natural History: Zoology, Botany, and Geology:

     Thus, from what has been stated, we see that neither the white puncta nor the minute white branchwork of lines were ever tubular.