1. An artisan who works in wire.
1670. [Charter of Wire-workers of London].
1792. New Bath Directory, 24. Painter, Glazier, & Wire-worker.
1814. W. Johnston, Beckmann’s Invent. (ed. 2), IV. 309. Wire-workers, and other artists who use wire.
1846. McCulloch, Acc. Brit. Empire (1854), I. 748. The paper manufacture creates a considerable demand for the labour of … wire-workers.
2. One who pulls the wires of a puppet-show. In quot. fig.
a. 1843. Southey, Comm.-pl. Bk. (1851), IV. 260. Milton has not used machinery—for the supernatural powers are the characters of his poems, the agents themselves, not the wire-workers.
b. U.S. An earlier synonym of WIRE-PULLER.
1835. Col. Crockett’s Tour (Phila.), 172. He is the wire-worker, the very mover and organ of all those high-handed and lawless measures.
1842. Congressional Globe, App. 319/1. Should this be a party move,… I tell the ‘wire-workers’ of that party that they are raising a storm of indignation.
So wire-working vbl. sb. (a) the making of wire; (b) wire-pulling.
1835. Ure, Philos. Manuf., 62. Rope-making and wireworking.
1909. Westm. Gaz., 23 Feb., 2/2. Reducing to a minimum the … wire-working that would follow, if details as to the schedules were permitted to leak out piecemeal.
