filigree

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. Delicate and intricate ornamental work made from gold, silver, or other fine twisted wire.
2. n. An intricate, delicate, or fanciful ornamentation.
3. n. A design resembling such ornamentation: filigrees of frosting on a cake.
4. v. To decorate with or as if with filigree.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. Ornamental work consisting of fine gold, silver, or sometimes copper wire, formed into delicate tracery of scrolls, network, and the like, or of minute grains or plates of metal soldered to a background, or of both combined. It is used either independently or for application to more solid articles, and is one of the most ancient kinds of jewelers' work. The Greek and Etruscan filigree-work is of extreme beauty, and much of the jewelry for personal adornment found in their tombs or elsewhere is of this kind. In the middle ages filigree-work reached great development in certain parts of Europe, especially in Ireland before the eleventh century. It is made in northern Italy, Genoa and Venice being famous for it.
2. n. Any kind of ornamental openwork resembling or analogous to filigree.
3. n. Hence Figuratively, anything very delicate, light, and fanciful or showy in structure; especially, anything too delicately formed to be serviceable; something easily destroyed or injured.
4. Composed of filigree: as, a filigree brooch.
5. To ornament with filigree-work.

Wiktionary

1. n. A delicate and intricate ornamentation made from gold or silver twisted wire.
2. n. A design resembling such intricate ornamentation.
3. v. To decorate something with intricate ornamentation made from gold or silver twisted wire.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. Ornamental work, formerly with grains or breads, but now composed of fine wire and used chiefly in decorating gold and silver to which the wire is soldered, being arranged in designs frequently of a delicate and intricate arabesque pattern.
2. adj. Relating to, composed of, or resembling, work in filigree. Hence: Fanciful; unsubstantial; merely decorative.

WordNet 3.0

1. v. make filigree, as with a precious metal
2. n. delicate and intricate ornamentation (usually in gold or silver or other fine twisted wire)