† 1. Work done by, in, or with fire.
1601. Holland, Pliny, II. 467. But for that the … smoke … may stifle and choke them … they are forced to giue ouer such fire-work.
1607. Breton, Murmurer, D iiij. His heart, the Anuile wheron the deuill frames his fireworke.
1609. Rowlands, Crew Kind Gossips, 15.
| I am a woman, yet ile vndertake, | |
| The credit of this fire-worke [tobacco-smoking] quite to shake, | |
| Gainst any Maister-gunner of the trade. |
1686. Plot, Staffordsh., ix. § 10. 336. To the fire-works succeed the Arts relating to waters; whereof some are for profit only, others for pleasure.
† 2. An apparatus for working with fire, a furnace; also, a place where the material for fire is obtained. Obs.
1607. Dekker, Knt’s, Conjur. (1842), 21. The map of a country that lyes lower then the 17. valleys of Belgia, yea lower than the cole-pits of Newe castle, is farre more darke, farre more dreadfull, and fuller of knauerie, then the colliers of those fire-workes are.
1613. Rovenzon, Treat. Metal., C iv. The furnaces or Fire-works may be made round, or long, or triangular, or quadrangular, or with more angles, or part circular, or semi-circular, or part angular, or in as many seuerall formes or fashions as the owner pleaseth.
1674. Petty, Disc. Dupl. Proportion, 36. I know, that in Fire-works great Fires are more profitable than small; as in Brewers Coppers, and Iron-works may be seen; wherein double Fires produce more than double dispatch or advantage.
3. † A combustible or explosive composition for use in war (obs.); a projectile or other machine charged with such composition.
1560. Whitehorne, Ord. Souldiours, title-p. And moreover how to make Saltpetre, Gunpowder, and divers sorts of Fireworks or Wild Fire.
1636. Featley, Clavis Myst., xiv. 189. Granadoes and other fire-works … do more harm to them that cast them than to the enemie.
1676. Lond. Gaz., No. 1119/3. The Enemy set fire to a Firework they had prepared in the Court of Guard of the said Bastion.
c. 1710. in Torrington Mem. (1889), 140. Some boats mann’d, arm’d, and with fireworks, within the old mould, to burn a French privateer or merchant ship that lay there.
1777. Burke, Corr. (1844), II. 142. As the construction of all fireworks is perfectly understood at the ordnance-office, it will be expected that the magistrates will send this engine of mischief to that office.
1851. J. S. Macaulay, Field Fortif., 181. In the attack of fortified houses, the fire of the loop-holes may be stopped by the introduction of small rockets, or any other artificial fire-work, that will create an abundance of smoke.
fig. 1633. G. Herbert, Temple, Starre, iii.
| First with thy Fire-work burn to Dust | |
| Folly, and worse than Folly, Lust: | |
| Then with thy Light refine, | |
| And make it shine. |
1679. Establ. Test., 3. These Men of Tempestuous Principles are continually making their Fireworks in our very Intrals.
4. Any contrivance for the use of fire to produce a pleasing or scenic effect. † a. A ‘set piece’; an arrangement of pyrotechnic contrivances to form a pictorial or ornamental design. Also piece of firework.
1575. Gascoigne, Pr. Pleas. Kenilw. The evening, at which time there wer fire-works shewed upon the water, the which were both strange and wel executed; as sometimes, passing under the water a long space, when all men had thought they had been quenched, they would rise and mount out of the water again, and burne very furiously, untill they were utterlie consumed.
1590. Webbe, Trav. (Arb.), 28–9. I my selfe was there constrained to make a cunning peece of fire work framed in form like to ye Arke of Noy.
1644. Evelyn, Mem. (1857), I. 137. The night ended with fireworks…. The first appeared to be a mighty rock, bearing the Pope’s Arms, a dragon, and divers figures.
1675. Lond. Gaz., No. 1027/4. A rare Fire-work was erected on the little Isle … representing the Alliance of the Confederates.
1795. in Ld. Auckland’s Corr. (1862), III. 314. The shrubs of the island were rooted out to make a place for a fire-work.
b. A single piece of pyrotechnic apparatus, e.g., a rocket, squib, etc.
1611. Middleton & Dekker, Roaring Girl, V. 1. A justice in this town, that speaks nothing but make a mittimus, away with him to Newgate, used that rogue like a firework, to run upon a line betwixt him and me.
1684. Jer. Taylor, Contempl. State of Man, II. ix. (1699), 232–3. A Wheel of Squibs and Fire-Works, which whilst it moves, casts forth a thousand lights and splendors, with which the Beholders are much taken, but all at last ends in a little Smoke and burnt Paper.
1731. Swift, Answ. to Simile.
| But woman is a curst inflamer, | |
| No parish ducking-stool can tame her: | |
| To kindle strife, dame Nature taught her: | |
| Like fire-works she can burn in water. |
1849. F. B. Head, Stokers & Pokers, x. (1851), 93. The eccentric zigzag courses of all these letters to their respective destinations may justly be compared to the fiery tracks and sparks created by the sudden ignition of a sackful of fire-works of all descriptions.
c. pl. (formerly also sing.) A pyrotechnic display.
1588. Shaks., Loves Labour’s Lost, V. i. 119. The King would haue mee present the Princesse (sweet chucke) with some delightfull ostentation, or show, or pageant, or anticke, or fire-worke.
1625. K. Long, trans. Barclay’s Argenis, III. xxiv. 228. In expectation of fire-workes, which hee had promised not far from the shore, in three Boats, and all about the water.
1761. Foote, Lyar, I. Wks. 1709, I. 287. After supper a ball; and to conclude the night, a firework.
1848. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., I. 476. The service in the Abbey was followed by a stately banquet in the Hall, the banquet by brilliant fireworks, and the fireworks by much bad poetry.
1851. D. Jerrold, St. Giles, xx. 206. Though the omission of the bonfires and the fireworks did pain me—how could it be otherwise?—nevertheless, I feel all the stronger in our cause for knowing the revolutionary principles that, as I have more than once observed, are now arrayed against all that is great and titled in the country!
transf. 1872. Huxley, Phys., ix. 222. Most persons, again, have experienced the remarkable display of subjective fireworks which follows a heavy blow upon the eyes, produced by a fall from a horse, or by other methods well known to English youth.
d. fig.
1670. Eachard, Cont. Clergy, 31. For he has neither Squibs nor Fireworks, Stars nor Glories; the curs’d Carrier lost his best Book of Phrases, and the Malicious Mice and Rats eat up all his Pearls and Golden Sentences.
1682. Dryden, Abs. & Achit., II. 450.
| In fireworks give him leave to vent his spite; | |
| Those are the only serpents he can write. |
1883. F. M. Crawford, Dr. Claudius, ix. 159. Barker turned on the fireworks of his conversation for the amusement of Claudius.
1889. Barrère & Leland, Slang Dict., Fire-works (tailors), a great disturbance, a state of intense excitement.
5. attrib. and Comb., as firework-factory, -maker.
1885. Pall Mall G., 4 Nov., 4/1. Norwood, where Mr. Brock has his thirty acres of *firework factories. Ibid. (1892), 1 Nov., 5/2. We are busy manufacturing the smaller *firework goods all the year round.
1803. trans. Lebrun’s Monsieur Botte, II. 230. The *fire-work maker loaded ten porters with grenades.
1885. Pall Mall G., 4 Nov., 4/1. None more healthy than the firework maker.
Hence Fireworkless a., devoid of fireworks. Fireworky a., like a firework, abrupt, jerky.
1856. Dickens, Lett. (1880), I. 437. Whom I found with some fireworkless little boys in a desolate condition, and raised to the seventh heaven of happiness.
1887. Graphic, 15 Jan., 66/2. The Major departed in his usual fireworky way.
1889. in Pall Mall G., 13 May, 6/2. He disported himself … in his kaleidoscopic and fireworky fantasia.
