[f. WORK sb. + SHOP sb. 3.] A room, apartment or building in which manual or industrial work is carried on.
1582. T. Watson, Centurie of Love, Ep. Ded. (Arb.), 25. Alexander the Great, passing on a time by the workeshop of Apelles, curiouslie surueyed some of his doinges.
1775. Johnson, West. Isl., 132 (Ostig). Supreme beauty is seldom found in cottages or work shops.
1813. Clarkson, Mem. W. Penn, xviii. 335. All prisons were to be considered as workshops.
1865. Dickens, Mut. Fr., I. ii. What was observable in the furniture, was observable in the Veneerings—the surface smelt a little too much of the workshop and was a trifle sticky.
1901. Act 1 Edw. VII., c. 22 § 149. The expression ‘workshop’ means … any premises, room or place, not being a factory, in which … or within the close or curtilage or precincts of which … any manual labour is exercised.
b. transf. and fig.
1562. T. Norton, Calvin’s Inst., Table s.v. Supper of Lord, The constitution which toke away from lay men the cup of the Lorde, came out of the deuells workshop.
1781. Gibbon, Decl. & F., xvii. II. 62, note. Two accurate treatises, which come from the workshop of the Benedictines.
1814. Scott, Wav., lii. Fergus’s brain was a perpetual workshop of scheme and intrigue.
1838. Disraeli, Sp., 15 March, in Hansard’s Parl. Debates, XLI. 939/2. To suppose that … the continent would suffer England to be the workshop for the world.
1878. Gurney, Crystallogr., 8. The workshop of Nature.
1900. W. P. Ker, Ess. Dryden, Introd. p. xxi. If he cannot explain the secrets of the dramatic workshop.
c. attrib.
1869. J. G. Winton (title), Modern Workshop Practice as applied to marine, land, and locomotive engines, [etc.].
1873. E. Spon (title), Workshop Receipts, for the use of manufacturers, mechanics, and scientific amateurs.
1902. Daily Chron., 29 April, 3/5. The workshop system answers because the master works with his men, and gets the best out of them.
