DOVETAIL • DICTIONARY ONE.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

... ore in mines, others transport their produce, others smelt it and work it into shape, according to the designs and plans of still other men; then it is transported by new groups and marketed by an endless chain of men whose labors dovetail to the end that mankind has a tool, a habitation or an ornament. The past and present cooperate in this labor, as do the remote ends of the earth. Competition is the SPUR of trade; its mighty sinews, its strong heart ...

— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson

... normal phrase on such occasions (there is always a "dovetail" de rigueur) "Allah give ...

— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... offend your intellect; and we must become dull or we should offend your taste. A late writer, wishing to sustain his interest to the last page, hung his hero at the end of the third volume. The consequence was that no one would read his novel. And who can apportion out and dovetail his incidents, dialogues, characters, and descriptive morsels so as to fit them all exactly into 930 pages, without either compressing them unnaturally, or extending them artificially at the end of his labour? Do I not myself know that I am at this moment in want of a dozen pages, ...

— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... question that, as to where the sensuous ends, and the spiritual begins. The dovetail is so exact just at the junction that it is impossible to determine, and it is there that "spirit and flesh grow one with delight" on occasion; but the test of the spiritual lies in its continuity. Pleasures of the senses pall upon repetition, but pleasures of the soul continue and increase. A ...

— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... in most cases is quite indiscoverable, and still less, according to the dates of the MSS. in which they are contained. The order is given by the position, in real or mythical history, of the events they deal with. Of course it is not practicable to dovetail them into one another with perfect accuracy. Where a story, like that of the Children of Lir, extends over nearly a thousand years, beginning with the mythical People of Dana and ending in the period ...

— The High Deeds of Finn and other Bardic Romances of Ancient Ireland • T. W. Rolleston

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