jig-saw, n. orig. U.S.
Also gig-saw, jigsaw.
[f. jig v. + saw.]
a. A vertically reciprocating saw driven by a crank, mounted in various different ways. Also attrib., of a type of architectural decoration using fretwork patterns.
| 1873 J. Richards Wood-working Factories 128 With respect to jig saws, the band saw and duplicating machines have driven the most of them out of use. 1875 Knight Dict. Mech., Gig-saw, a thin saw to which a rapid vertical reciprocation is imparted, and which is adapted for sawing scrolls, frets, etc. 1892 Kipling Lett. of Travel (1920) 21 The jig-saw days, when it behoved respectability to use unlovely turned rails and pierced gable-ends. 1928 E. O'Neill Strange Interlude iii. 86 The room is one of those big, misproportioned dining rooms that are found in the large, jigsaw country houses scattered around the country as a result of the rural taste for grandeur in the eighties. 1966 M. M. Pegler Dict. Interior Design 245 Jigsaw detail. a cutout or fretwork design made with a jigsaw. It was used for the enhancement of buildings of the mid and late 19th century. The bargework was often made with a jigsaw. The ‘gingerbread’ or ‘steamboat Gothic’, late Victorian period was jigsaw work in its most aggravated form. 1968 J. Arnold Shell Bk. Country Crafts 274 Salad-forks, for example, are cut without previous marking by a hand jig-saw. |
b. In full, jig-saw puzzle. A puzzle formed by cutting into small irregular pieces (orig. with a jig-saw) a picture mounted on a sheet of wood, cardboard, or the like. (Now the usual sense.) So jig-saw map. Also transf. and fig.
| 1909 Daily Mirror 17 Aug. 4/4 A jigsaw map of England. Ibid., These jigsaw geography puzzles should be introduced into all the Council schools in London. 1910 Punch 9 Mar. 172 (caption) What if the jig-saw epidemic spreads? 1915 Morning Post 15 Apr. 2/4 A kind of verbal jig-saw. 1919 E. Shackleton South i. 11 Pack-ice might be described as a gigantic and interminable jigsaw-puzzle devised by nature. 1935 W. S. Maugham Don Fernando x. 213 The various particulars fit like the pieces of a jig-saw puzzle. 1947 People 22 June 4/3 How can this jigsaw be pieced together? Many of the facts are now known as a result of most painstaking police inquiries. 1955 A. Huxley Let. 25 Sept. (1969) 766 All this jigsaw work entailed in shaping a play for stage production is extremely boring. 1964 M. Critchley Developmental Dyslexia ix. 57 Constructional tasks which embrace spatial concepts include the assembling of jigsaw puzzles, a game which may not be easy for some of these dyslexics. 1972 Oxford Times 11 Aug. 3 As the excavation proceeds more and more tiny pieces of the archaeological jigsaw puzzle will be discovered. 1974 G. Markstein Cooler xl. 149 Sylvia was turning into the little jigsaw piece that often remained the hardest one to find. |
Hence jig-saw v. trans., to cut or shape with a jig-saw; also, to fit together the pieces of a jig-saw puzzle. Freq. fig.
| 1873 J. Richards Wood-working Factories 128 What may be said of jig-sawing need not consume much space here. 1883 Howells Woman's Reason (Tauchn. 1884) I. 213 Designs jig-sawed out of white-wood. 1938 Times 2 Feb. 13/4 Jig-sawing is one of the few pastimes in which bludgeoning methods definitely do not pay. 1963 Harper's Bazaar Jan. 29/3 It taxed all Miss Molesworth's expertise to jigsaw the requirements into a pleasing ensemble. 1966 Punch 18 May 720 I've often cut his articles into line sentences, mixed them up, and tried to jigsaw them together, a most difficult thing to do until you've caught the drift of his mind. 1967 Listener 9 Feb. 207/3 The interviews through which Lowry's character was jigsawed together were wholly fascinating. 1973 Guardian 27 Feb. 11/5 We..jig-sawed our bits together into one consecutive piece, typing on maddening French machines. |