ppl. a. [f. WORK v. + -ED1.]
1. Used for farm-work.
1707. Mortimer, Husb., 170. An old worked Ox fatting as well, and being as good Meat as a young one.
2. Executed or ornamented with needlework, engraving, or the like.
1740. Mrs. E. Montagu, Corr. (1906), I. 47. I desire you to send me up my worked facing and robing.
1746–7. Mrs. Delany, Autobiogr. (1861), II. 447. In my Irish green damask and my worked head.
1816. Scott, Old Mort., xl. The worked-worsted chairs.
1857. Dickens, Dorrit, II. xxx. She turned the watch upon the table, and … looked at the worked letters within.
1884. E. Yates, Recoll., I. 181. Elaborately dressed, with a worked shirt-front and huge white waistcoat.
3. Shaped, fashioned, or dressed for use or ornament.
1864. J. Hunt, trans. Vogt’s Lect. Man, x. 288. He reports that he has found … worked flints at a depth of twelve feet in a stratified soil.
1892. Archaeologia, LIV. 110. Many fragments of worked bone and horn were discovered.
4. In various senses: Contrived, managed, conducted, etc.; Hort. grafted.
1848. W. Paul, Rose Gard., 102. When potting worked plants, we should have an eye to suckers from the wild stock.
1882. F. E. Hulme (title), Worked Examination Questions in Plane Geometrical Drawing.
1886. Col. Maurice, Lett. fr. Donegal, 4. To teach the slaves of the League that they cannot disobey with impunity, by a cleverly-worked intrigue.
1904. Westm. Gaz., 1 June, 12/1. ‘Leased’ or ‘worked’ lines.
5. With advs., as worked-off, -out, -up (see the corresponding senses of the verb).
1770. Luckombe, Hist. Printing, 360. He grasps off the Worked off Heap so much at once … as he can well govern.
1882. Rep. Ho. Repr. Prec. Met. U.S., 641. The worked-out space becomes more or less filled with bowlders.
1893. Helps to Study of Bible, 269. Some modern Egyptologists maintain that gold was found in Egypt in ancient times, and believe that they have found some old worked-out mines of it beyond Assouan.
1903. Daily Chron., 29 Oct., 3/3. The worked-up feelings of a personal witness of these scenes.
1908. Stage Year Bk., 21. The Sins of Society..., an ingeniously conceived and vigorously worked-out spectacle play.
