Definition of "fretwork" [fret•work]

• Ornamental work consisting of three-dimensional frets; geometric openwork. (noun)
• Such ornamental work represented two dimensionally by chiaroscuro. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "The walls apparently were hewn from black rock, and at regular intervals, placed some three feet from these gleaming walls, uprose slender golden pillars supporting a kind of fretwork arch which entirely masked the ceiling."
• "His metrical movements are full of the same joy in "fretwork" effects -- verse-rhythm and sense-rhythm constantly crossing where the reader expects them to coincide. ["
• "But the Smithsonian quickly realized that there are downsides to owning a fragile, 100-year-old wooden structure dripping with ornamental fretwork."