patchwork

nounB2+Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #13,989 of 15,258leans written

Other forms: patchworks

Patchwork is work made of small pieces of different cloth. A patchwork quilt, sewn in patchwork, a patchwork of fields.

The figurative use is common and slightly critical: a patchwork of regulations is one assembled piece by piece with no plan. The quilting tradition began in thrift and became an art of its own.

Definitions of patchwork

1nounpatchworkWork made of small pieces of different cloth.B2+
“My grandmother made a patchwork quilt from our old shirts and dresses.”

patchwork is a work.

Where it comes from

Patch plus work, from cloth assembled out of small pieces.

From patch + work.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire

Practise this word

patchwork in the wild

A patchwork quilt is a quilt in which the top layer may consist of pieces of fabric sewn together to form a design.
Patchwork quilt
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has listed the patchwork stingaree under Least Concern, as it is subject to minimal fishing pressure.
Patchwork stingaree
In China, patchwork has been used for millennia.
Chinese patchwork
Chinese patchwork is made by sewing scraps of fabric together into a desired shape to form design art with a distinctive theme.
Chinese patchwork
But this imperfectly taught woman, whose phrases and habits were an odd patchwork, had a loyal spirit within her.
Middlemarch· George Eliot

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

From Project Gutenberg, public domain. These sentences are from real books, shown to illustrate the word at work.

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