Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Material, such as wood or ivory, inlaid piece by piece into a wood surface in an intricate design and veneered to another surface, especially of furniture, for decoration.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun An inlay of some thin material in the surface of a piece of furniture or other object.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun uncountable, woodworking A decorative technique in which veneers of wood, ivory, metal etc. are inlaid into a wood surface to form intricate designs.
  • noun countable An example of this work

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun inlaid veneers are fitted together to form a design or picture that is then used to ornament furniture

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French marqueterie, from Old French, from marqueter, to checker, from marque, mark, ultimately from Old Norse merki, mark; see merg- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle French marqueterie.

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Examples

  • The inlay of wood has been called marquetry and intarsia, and was used principally on furniture and choir stalls.

    Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages A Description of Mediaeval Workmanship in Several of the Departments of Applied Art, Together with Some Account of Special Artisans in the Early Renaissance Julia de Wolf Gibbs Addison

  • Rob Milam uses a technique called marquetry to create stunning portraits out of wood veneer.

    TREND HUNTER - The Latest Trends 2010

  • A fantasia of knurled aluminum, polished brightwork, a door-to-door waistrail of walnut marquetry and piano-black fascia.

    Massive, but Not for the Masses Dan Neil 2011

  • I carried the finished product out to her, along with fresh cups of coffee, on a marquetry serving tray.

    Three: A Heavenly Mansion W.F. Lantry 2012

  • Each slice was exactly 6mm thick and I cut it with a marquetry saw before deciding this was ridiculous, and that I should be using my teeth.

    How we made: Vicken Parsons and Antony Gormley on Bed 2012

  • Bentley The workspace from the driver's seat is exemplary: A fantasia of knurled aluminum, polished brightwork, a door-to-door waistrail of walnut marquetry and piano-black fascia.

    Hand-Made Hyper-Luxury 2011

  • The decoration's marquetry, the trick is hiding mechanisms in the grain.

    Himitsu Bako W.F. Lantry 2011

  • Occasionally a piece is accented with simple inlays of pewter, copper or wood marquetry, but most frequently Stickley relies on vigorous strap hinges, bale drawer-pulls and other wrought-iron or hammered copper hardware to lend ornament to the restrained Craftsman design vocabulary.

    Four-Square Reformer Barrymore Laurence Scherer 2010

  • Yet while the straight lines and flat veneered panels of Koloman Moser's "Enchanted Princesses Cabinet" 1900 foreshadow a design vocabulary several decades in the future, the long-haired princesses inlaid in marquetry are pure Pre-Raphaelite medievalism, proving that Romantic ideas weren't entirely discarded by the rising generation.

    Modernism's Austrian Rebels Barrymore Laurence Scherer 2011

  • Mr. Makepeace has also experimented for the first time with marquetry, using white holly and dark oak to produce a pair of "Zebra" cabinets.

    Going Against the Grain Emma Crichton-Miller 2011

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