vbl. sb. [f. WIRE v. + -ING1.]
1. The action of the verb WIRE in various senses.
1809. Syd. Smith, Charac. Fox, Wks. 1859, I. 153/2. All the decretals of our ancestors respecting the wiring of hares.
1831. Youatt, Horse, 294. Lameness … does not always exist when the wiring in is slow or of long standing.
1872. Punch, 29 June, 269/2. Unless he telegraphs, which, when once you ’ve started him at what he calls ‘wiring,’ he generally does three or four times a day.
1874. J. D. Heath, Croquet-player, 71. Red, instead of playing thus,… complete; the wiring, remaining near the hoop as before.
1890. Pall Mall Gaz., 29 Sept., 3/1. It discouraged scamped contract work in the [electric light] wiring of houses.
2. concr. Wires collectively; wirework.
1809. Scott, Poacher, 79. Cordage for toils, and wiring for the snare.
1881. [see WIRE v. 2 d].
1897. S. Crane, Third Violet, xxv. 171. The cashier of the Gamin office looked under his respectable brass wiring and said: [etc.].
1915. Sci. Amer., 30 Jan., 95/2. A complicated 8-cylinder machine with its multiplication of wiring.
b. (See quot.)
1878. D. Kemp, Yacht & Boat Sailing, 380. Wiring, a stringer or ledge running fore and aft in a boat to support the thwarts.
3. attrib., as wiring machine, system; Mil. concerned with barbed-wire operations, as wiring party.
1875. Knight, Dict. Mech., Wiring-machine,… a machine turning the edge of a tin-pan over a stiffening-wire.
1887. Manch. Exhib. Catal., 126. Complete Plants for the Manufacture of Aerated Waters,… Wiring Machine, [etc.].
1902. W. C. Clinton, Electric Wiring, iii. 52. Wiring Systems.
1916. Blackw. Mag., May, 705/2. Four nights previously Angus had been sent out in charge of a wiring-party.
