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The Collaborative International Dictionary
Carven

Carven \Car"ven\, a. Wrought by carving; ornamented by carvings; carved. [Poetic]

A carven bowl well wrought of beechen tree.
--Bp. Hall.

The carven cedarn doors.
--Tennyson.

A screen of carven ivory.
--Mrs. Browning.

Wiktionary
carven

a. Made by carve, especially when intricately or artistically done.

WordNet
carven

adj. made for or formed by carving (`carven' is archaic or literary); "the carved fretwork"; "an intricately carved door"; "stood as if carven from stone" [syn: carved] [ant: uncarved]

Usage examples of "carven".

The hobbies stood in a semicircle about him, looking on and rocking most sedately and while they had no expression on their carven faces, I thought that I detected in them a sense of satisfaction at having made so good a haul.

The very sun of heaven seemed distorted when viewed through the polarising miasma welling out from this sea-soaked perversion, and twisted menace and suspense lurked leeringly in those crazily elusive angles of carven rock where a second glance showed concavity after the first showed convexity.

CHAPTER III It flashed upon her with the desert, with the burning heaps of carnation and orange-coloured rocks, with the first sand wilderness, the first brown villages glowing in the late radiance of the afternoon like carven things of bronze, the first oasis of palms, deep green as a wave of the sea and moving like a wave, the first wonder of Sahara warmth and Sahara distance.

Kadath either through the desert of carven mountains north of Inquanok, or through the more northerly reaches of repulsive Leng itself.

Temple of the Elder Ones with its sixteen carven sides, its flattened dome, and its lofty pinnacled belfry, overtopping all else, and majestic whatever its foreground.

To this being the slanteyed man made certain signs with his hands, and the lurker in the dark replied by raising a disgustingly carven flute of ivory in silkcovered paws and blowing certain loathsome sounds from beneath its flowing yellow mask.

For if Jazz had wondered at the seismic or corrosive forces of nature which had created the mountains, what was he to make of the spindly towers of mist-wreathed rock standing to the east: fantastically carven, mile-high aeries that soared like alien sky-scrapers up from the boulder plain in the shadow of the rearing mountains?

Of nobler frame than creatures of to-day, Swathed in fine linen cerecloths fold on fold, With carven weapons wrought of bronze and gold, Accoutred like a warrior for the fray.

The northern front against the crystal sky Loomed dark and heavy, full of sombre shade, With each projecting buttress, carven cross, Gable and mullion, tipped with laughing light By the slant sunbeams of the risen morn.

There were trousers of buckskin fringed down each side, a shirt of buckskin, beaded and beautified by shell ornaments, a necklace of the bones of a rare fish, strung together like little beads on deer sinew, earrings of pink and green pearl from the inner part of the shells of a bivalve, neat moccasins, and solid silver, carven bracelets.

To some the ivories will always be but crudely carven bone, the jades the potter's sham, the musk and aloes the product of a soap factory, the joss but a cigar-store Indian, and the Oriental dainties of Hong Fah the scrappings of a Yankee grocery store.

At every turn, some new and wondrous object appeared to hand—gold cups and plates ornamented with jewels, silver-gilt candlesticks, ornate nefs, porringers, cast-gold aquamaniles shaped like lions with their tails arched across their backs to form handles, all manner of tableware, carven chairs inlaid with ivory or gold and silver wire, richly chased and engraved caskets filled with jewels, ropes of pearls, bracelets, rings, torques, gold-mounted cameos and intaglios, fine chains and gem-crusted girdles, shirts of mail, gauntlets, helms, greaves, cuirasses floridly engraved, etched and embossed with gold or silver—an entire armory—and weapons of an unknown metal, honed spite-sharp.

Here and there, in seemingly no special arrangement at all, stood tables and shelves, the surfaces of which were buried under fringed silken cloths and delicately carven boxes, golden baskets and wondrously glazed vases, crystal bottles and enameled wicker boxes woven with thread of gold from which depended brilliants and faceted stones of blue, red, and smoke, or enormous beads of amber.

Her glance fell on the narrow, carven girdle which Deoris wore cinctured loosely over her night-dress.

There stood Council Hall, slate-roofed, heavy-timbered, colonnaded with carven water monsters.