1. Work produced by frost; esp. the delicate tracery formed on the surface of glass, etc. by frost.
1729. Savage, Wanderer, III. 65.
| In Frost-work now delight the sportive kind [Fairies]: | |
| Now court wild Fancy in the whistling Wind. |
1827. Gentl. Mag., XCVII. II. 483. I peeped through the chamber window externally beautified by the glittering frost-work.
1862. M’Cosh, Supernat., II. i. § 4. 153. The frostworks on our flag-stones, and windows, so like the tree in their ramifications.
fig. 1792. S. Rogers, The Pleasures of Memory, II. 437.
| If but a beam of sober Reason play, | |
| Lo, Fancy’s fairy frost-work melts away! |
1853. C. Brontë, Villette, xix. 188. Those few warm words, though only warm with anger, breathed on that frail frost-work of reserve; about this time, it gave note of dissolution.
attrib. 1822. Shelley, Hellas, 413.
| Armies of the Eternal, ye who strike | |
| To dust the citadels of sanguine kings, | |
| And shake the souls throned on their stony hearts, | |
| And thaw their frostwork diadems like dew. |
1832. J. Bree, St. Herbert’s Isle, 4. The frost-work palace of an April night.
2. Ornamentation in imitation of this.
1648. E. Sparke, in J. Shute, Sarah & Hagar (1649), Pref. b 1 a. Many others set but their slight Frost-works upon Sattin.
1664. Power, Experimental Philosophy, I. 7. Her [the Horse-Fly’s] body looks like silver in frost-work, onely fring’d all over with white silk.
1872. Ruskin, Eagle’s Nest, § 174. The feathers like frost-work of silver.
attrib. 1703. Moxon, Mech. Exerc., 59. Like frost work Silver.
Hence Frost-worked ppl. a., ornamented with frost-work, frosted.
1710. Lond. Gaz., No. 4748/4. A small silver Milk Pot frost worked.
