Also 9 bye-. [f. BY- 3 d, e, 4, 5 + WORK.]
1. Work done by the way, in intervals of leisure, as opposed to one’s main business; = Gr. πάρεργον; also depreciatively, work done with ulterior or interested motives.
1587. Golding, De Mornay, xvi. (1617), 281. Which of vs doth it [good] not as a by-worke for some other things sake.
1607. T. Walkington, Optic Glass, 159. To make a by-worke a worke, is to make our worke a by-worke.
1647. H. More, Infinity of Worlds, lvi. The appearance of the nightly starres Is but the by-work of each neighbour sun.
1710. Norris, Chr. Prud., viii. 385. To make Religion the great business and concern of their Lives, and not as most do a By-work.
1873. H. Rogers, Orig. Bible, ii. 82. Which are but the bye-work of her beneficence.
1885. G. Allen, Darwin, 128. The by-work with which he filled up one of the intervals between his greater and more comprehensive treatises.
2. An accessory and subsidiary work. ? Obs.
1587. Golding, De Mornay, xi. 154. Nailes, pinnes, Riuets, Buttons & such, I haue thought them to be but byworkes.
1601. Holland, Pliny, II. 550. He deuised another by-worke to expresse the same.
† 3. A work done awry or amiss. Obs.
1615. Crooke, Body of Man, 271. Wherefore Aristotle thinketh … that the female is a bye worke or preuarication, yea the first monster in Nature.
