Definitions

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

  • noun Work done by hand rather than by machine.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Work done by hand, as distinguished from that done by machinery.

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

  • noun Work done by the hands, as opposed to by machine.

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

  • noun a work produced by hand labor

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

hand +‎ work

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Examples

  • It would seem to me that handwork is handwork, whether spent truing an action and lapping a barrel or carving and finishing a stock.

    Investing in Rifles 2008

  • So you feel "Look at how wonderful the eye is, surely it proclaims God's handwork" is reasonable, but "Look at how shoddy the panda's thumb is, surely it denies God's handwork" is objectionable.

    Assessing Causality 2008

  • I think the peacefulness of the handwork is just what I need right now ...

    Preparing for the Baby... regina doman 2007

  • I think the peacefulness of the handwork is just what I need right now ...

    Archive 2007-12-01 regina doman 2007

  • The second kind of labour which every owner of a farm had to do on the monks 'land was called handwork, that is to say, he had to help repair buildings, or cut down trees, or gather fruit, or make ale, or carry loads -- anything, in fact, which wanted doing and which the steward told him to do.

    Medieval People Eileen Edna Power 1914

  • In ancient Greece, where a single word, techne, described every kind of handwork from painting to weaving to blacksmithing, a goddess, Athena, ran the show, except for the smithy where the gods ordered up their armor (and perhaps the shoes for Pegasus and Apollo's horses of the sun): that dark, dirty realm belonged to lame Hephaistos.

    Women Artists Win! Rowland, Ingrid D. 2008

  • About one-half the amount paid for labor goes to the men who run the machine tools, and the other half is paid to workmen who do the other work, such as handwork, assembling, transporting, etc.

    Industrial Progress and Human Economics James Hartness

  • _Stem Stitch_ is used in frame embroidery, and does not differ in any way from that described at page 20, under "handwork," except that the needle is of course worked through the material with both hands, as is the case in all frame work.

    Handbook of Embroidery L. Higgin 1852

  • Blurring the Line: art of thread, Bjarnadottir adopts the "handwork" of her native Iceland as she "unravels its traditions within the context of contemporary art."

    PORT 2008

  • Everywhere there were people –- men working in the ankle-deep mud of the irrigated fields; a group of women sitting in a circle on a huge cloth, doing some kind of handwork I couldn’t quite see; children chasing each other down the long narrow mounds that divided the rectangular plots, or shooing cows from one meager pasture to another with long switches.

    Firedoglake » Good Governance Is More Than CYA… 2006

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