webwork

English

Etymology

From web +‎ work.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈwɛbˌwɜːk/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈwɛbˌwɝk/
• Hyphenation: web‧work

Noun

webwork (usually uncountable, plural webworks)

1. A net or web; something structured or interlinked in a weblike manner.
   • 1946, William Allison Shimer, editor, The American Scholar‎^[1], volume XV, page 87:

     Most frequently, the three make up the webwork of his literary fabric.

   • 1990, Noël Carroll, The Philosophy of Horror: Or, Paradoxes of the Heart, New York: Routledge:

     Very quickly it becomes evident that these webworks are part of an unaccountably large lair of thousands of spiders.

   • 2002, Sten Odenwald, “Gravity’s Web”, in Patterns in the Void: Why Nothing Is Important‎^[2], 1st edition, Westview Press, →ISBN, page 111:

     In some sense, the entire webwork of space-time would dissolve into myriad unconnected points in the spaceless and timeless Void with no communication between them.

   • 2003, David Carr, “Museums, Educative: An Encyclopedia Entry”, in The Promise of Cultural Institutions, Rowman Altamira, →ISBN, page 35:

     If museums are to assist their users to explore and develop what they know, they must invite the avalanche of questions and create the webwork of connections that configure a learning life.

   • 2003, Ben Jones, chapter XIII, in The Rope Eater, Doubleday, →ISBN, page 185:

     Delicate fingers of frost reached up from the floor and extended down from the ceiling; the bottles were covered with a lacy webwork so fine that it looked like cobwebs.

Synonyms

• meshwork
• network