patchwork
something made up of an incongruous variety of pieces or parts; hodgepodge: a patchwork of verse forms.
work made of pieces of cloth or leather of various colors or shapes sewed together, used especially for covering quilts, cushions, etc.
resembling a patchwork, especially in being makeshift, irregular, or improvised: a patchwork policy of dispensing foreign aid.
to make as patchwork: She specializes in patchworking skirts.
to assemble or connect in making patchwork: to patchwork neckties into bedspreads.
Origin of patchwork
1Other words for patchwork
Other words from patchwork
- patchworky, adjective
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use patchwork in a sentence
Colorful blue patchworks created a leather-lace effect on sleeveless dresses.
Balenciaga’s Nicolas Ghesquiere Shows Whispers of Brilliance in Spring 2013 Collection | Robin Givhan | September 27, 2012 | THE DAILY BEASTMany of the valleys of our present rivers are but patchworks of preglacial, interglacial, and postglacial courses (Fig. 366).
The Elements of Geology | William Harmon NortonAll these Lives are patchworks, and their component elements are of very different origins and dates.
The Latin & Irish Lives of Ciaran | AnonymousVisions, like dreams, are often mere patchworks built up of bits of recollections.
Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development | Francis GaltonThis technique is known from the earliest periods on the coast in the so-called patchworks from Nazca Valley graves.
Chincha Plain-weave cloths | Lila M. O'Neale
In two Chincha plain-weave cloths, as in the Nazca patchworks, the warps of two colors meet on the skeleton weft.
Chincha Plain-weave cloths | Lila M. O'Neale
British Dictionary definitions for patchwork
/ (ˈpætʃˌwɜːk) /
needlework done by sewing pieces of different materials together
something, such as a theory, made up of various parts: a patchwork of cribbed ideas
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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