1. Work executed in wax.
1723. Blackmore, Alfred, II. 67. Th’ industrious Tenants of the narrow Hive … fetch Home Spoils their Wax-works to renew.
2. esp. Modelling in wax; an object or objects modelled in wax; usually applied to life-size effigies of persons, with head, hands and bust of wax, colored and clothed to look like life.
1697. Post Boy, 20–3 Nov., 2/2. At the Golden Salmon in St. Martins, near Aldersgate, is to be seen, in Wax-work, about Fifty Figures, all big as the Life.
1701. in Cath. Rec. Soc. Publ., VII. 103. Ye Procession which began before 7 with 12 Pageants of History in large Wax Work.
a. 1704. T. Brown, Walk Lond. & Westm., Wks. 1719, III. 316. Here stood Edward III. as they told us, which was a broken Piece of Waxwork, a batter’d Head, and a Straw-stuff’d Body.
1774. Wesley, Jrnl., 24 Jan. I was desired by Mrs. Wright, of New-York, to let her take my effigy in wax-work.
1840. Dickens, Old C. Shop, xxvii. I’ve seen wax-work quite like life. Ibid. (1865), Mut. Fr., I. ix. ‘It’s no good my being kept here like Wax-Work, is it now?’ ‘People have to pay to see Wax-Work, my dear,’ returned her husband.
fig. 1858. Gladstone, Homer, III. 512. Homer gives us figures that breathe and move. Virgil usually treats us to waxwork.
b. pl.
1774. Goldsm., Nat. Hist., II. 267. Of Mummies, Wax-Works, &c.
1896. S. Butler, Life & Lett. Dr. S. Butler, I. 228. This can only be surpassed … by Dr. Arnold’s taking the terra-cotta figures of the Varese chapels for waxworks.
3. An exhibition of wax figures representing celebrated or notorious characters; also, the place of exhibition. Now pl.
1796. T. Morton, Way to get Married, V. i. You must show me the sights—The lions at the Tower,… the parliament-house, and the wax-work.
1806. J. Beresford, Miseries Hum. Life, vii. § 67. Escorting two or three coaches full of country-cousins … to the Lions, the Wax-work, the Monumnent, &c.
1831. Cruchley’s Pict. Lond., 112. Wax Works. Fleet Street.
1837. Thackeray, Ravenswing, ii. He looked like a figure out of a wax-work.
1895. Sir H. Irving, in Daily News, 17 June, 6/4. ‘You didn’t go [to the Lyceum]! Why not?’ ‘Well, sir, you see there’s the missus, and she preferred the wax-works.’
4. U.S. The climbing bitter-sweet, Celastrus scandens; so called from the waxy scarlet aril of the fruit.
1856. A. Gray, Man. Bot. (1860), 81. Celastrus scandens (Wax-work. Climbing Bitter-sweet).
5. attrib. and Comb., as waxwork-figure, -show; waxwork-man, the proprietor of a waxworks.
1827. Syd. Smith, Wks. (1859), II. 131/1. There is a wax-work Pope, and a wax-work Court of Rome.
1836. Dickens, Sk. Boz, Gt. Winglebury Duel. Whenever a juggler, or wax-work man, or concert-giver, takes Great Winglebury in his circuit. Ibid. (1840), Old C. Shop, xxvii. Mrs. Jarley’s wax-work show. Ibid., xxix. She slept … in the room where the wax-work figures were.
1889. R. Buchanan, in Contemp. Rev., Dec., 912. The highway is strewn with the corpses of dead poets who never lived,… with loud inglorious Cowleys, with waxwork Popes.
1898. Watts-Dunton, Aylwin, VIII. i. The House of Commons has become a bear-garden, and t’other House a wax-work show.
