DOVETAIL • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Dovetail

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/dˈəvtˌeɪl/ Listen

noun

Dovetail n. (Carp.) A flaring tenon, or tongue (shaped like a bird's tail spread), and a mortise, or socket, into which it fits tightly, making an interlocking joint between two pieces which resists pulling a part in all directions except one.

Dovetail molding (Arch.), a molding of any convex section arranged in a sort of zigzag, like a series of dovetails.

Dovetail saw (Carp.), a saw used in dovetailing.

verb

Dovetail v. t. (past & past part. dovetailed; pres. part. dovetailing)

(Carp.)

(a)

To cut to a dovetail.

(b)

To join by means of dovetails.

To fit in or connect strongly, skillfully, or nicely; to fit ingeniously or complexly. "He put together a piece of joinery so crossly indented and whimsically dovetailed... that it was indeed a very curious show."

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Etymology of 'Dovetail'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Dovetail" Quotes from Famous Books

... dovetail. We drop a stitch and then go back and pick it up—now there is that place of yours, down ...

— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock

... sufficiently high to please the palates of the news-reading public. The offices afford them an excellent variety of characters, which, like skilful dramatists, they work up until they become really humorous: many of the cases afford them capital plots, into which they cleverly dovetail pleasant little episodes, and adhere no closer to the deposed facts than many of our by-gone playwrights have done to the sacred page of history. We allude only to the cases of humour which occur at the police-offices: those reports ...

— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 267, August 4, 1827 • Various

... Lee's army, and bearing also in mind that the following are facts which can be disputed only by denying the truth and accuracy of all the reports, Federal and Confederate, taken as a body; and these happen to dovetail into each other in one so consistent whole, that they leave to the careful student none but entirely ...

— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge

... although he loved best to forgather with those of his own sex, woman meant much for him! There must be a woman somewhere in the world—a needle in a bottle of hay—a nature that could dovetail and fit in with his own; but what a life-long quest to find her! She must be young and beautiful, like Julia—rien que ca!—and as kind and clever and simple and well-bred and easy to live with as Aunt ...

— The Martian • George Du Maurier

... Gatton, "is that so?" He looked at me very queerly. "It doesn't seem to dovetail with the ...

— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer

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