[f. JOURNEY sb. 5 + WORK.]
1. Work done for daily wages or for hire; the work of a journeyman.
1601. Sir W. Cornwallis, Ess., II. l. N N v b. The next … worke iorney worke … and trust themselues onely to their hire.
1712. Arbuthnot, John Bull, III. iv. When she could not get bread for her family, she was forced to hire them out at journey work to her neighbours.
1768–74. Tucker, Lt. Nat. (1834), II. 489. He may better qualify himself to act as a master, by doing journey-work in the interim.
2. fig. (chiefly depreciatory). Work delegated to a subordinate or done for hire; servile, inferior or inefficient work; hackwork.
1614. T. Adams, Devil’s Banquet, 55. Machiauell will no longer worke Iourney-worke with the Deuill, he will now cut out the garment of damnation himselfe.
1714. in Swift’s Corr., Wks. 1841, II. 514. They would not give the dragon [Lord Oxford] the least quarter, excepting only a pension, if he will work journeywork by the quarter.
1859. Gen. P. Thompson, Audi Alt., II. lxxxix. 64. Fancy decent and reverend men set to such a job of journey-work by virtue of their offices.
1880. Swinburne, Stud. Shaks., App. (ed. 2), 235. The swift impatient journeywork of a rough and ready hand.
So Journey-worker, -workman, a journeyman.
1755. Phil. Trans., XLIX. 172. Servants, journey-workmen, and young people, that are to push into life.
1886. T. Hardy, Woodlanders, iv. Besides the itinerant journey-workers there were also present [etc.].
