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Dovetail   Listen
verb
Dovetail  v. t.  (past & past part. dovetailed; pres. part. dovetailing)  
1.
(Carp.)
(a)
To cut to a dovetail.
(b)
To join by means of dovetails.
2.
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."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Dovetail" Quotes from Famous Books



... attempt it was a wretched business. Never was builder set to work with bricks so impossible as the bricks of conversation with which this reconstruction must be done. Each that the girl had supplied might dovetail in as he would have it go; upon the other hand it fitted equally well when twisted into the form in which, for all he knew, she might have constructed it. The bricks George had himself supplied ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson

... then you may admit the air to feed this same flue near the bottom and perhaps save fuel; but I doubt whether the remaining air will be any purer than if an equal amount had been allowed to escape near the ceiling. The answers to your square questions necessarily dovetail. The hot-air registers should always be in the partitions if possible. It saves sweeping dust into the pipes; it saves cutting the carpets; it lessens the risk of a debilitating warm bath to people addicted to standing over them; it diffuses ...
— Homes And How To Make Them • Eugene Gardner

... Ohio growers will try to produce better nut trees. Through prize contests they hope to find what nature has produced. Through the services of a scientist they hope to find what man can produce. The two aims dovetail. We are reasonably certain of the prize contests; we are not yet certain of ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Thirty-Seventh Annual Report • Various

... the same thickness as ribs, say 1-1/4 inches, nailed on to the sill to fill up the space between the ribs, and is then covered by the outside plinth or base. The other plan is to set the studs back 1-1/4 inches from face edge of sill; then let the end of ribs bevel down on the sill, or dovetail ...
— Woodward's Country Homes • George E. Woodward

... I had set up solidly upon a frame of well-connected woodwork. [1] Over this there lay a crust of plaster, about the eighth of a cubit in thickness, carefully modelled for the flesh of the Colossus. Lastly, I prepared a great number of moulds in separate pieces to compose the figure, intending to dovetail them together in accordance with the rules of art; and this ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini

... divided as to whether Annius was wholly a knave, or whether he was himself imposed upon. Or, again, whether he had some genuine fragments, and eked them out with his own inventions. It is observed that he did not dovetail the really genuine relics of Berosus and Manetho into the works attributed to them. This may be explained as the result of ignorance or of cunning; there can be no certain inference. "Even the Dominicans," ...
— Books and Bookmen • Andrew Lang

... in this matter we have been able to keep no sort of account; the wonder is that Balzac should have accomplished the feat himself. After the first year or two of his career, we never see him working upon a single tale; his productions dovetail and overlap, and dance attendance upon each other in the most bewildering fashion. As soon as one novel is fairly on the stocks he plunges into another, and while he is rummaging in this with one hand, he stretches out a heroic arm and breaks ground in a third. His plans ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various

... together properly, always make four. It's only the fools of the world that add wrong. If you'd had as much practice as I've had in dealing with humanity, you'd find it was an ever-increasing astonishment to see the way things dovetail in.... Who's this, ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew

... you begin to talk. That something can consist in nothing but a previous lot of ideas already interesting in themselves, and of such a nature that the incoming novel objects which you present can dovetail into them and form with them some kind of a logically associated or systematic whole. Fortunately, almost any kind of a connection is sufficient to carry the interest along. What a help is our Philippine war at present in teaching geography! But before the war you ...
— Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals • William James

... woman was distinctly not of her sort, though she had a certain liking for her. Every time she was brought in contact with her she had a painful sense of a grating adjustment as of points of meeting which did not dovetail as they should. Norman Lloyd represented one of the old families of the city, distinguished by large possessions and college training, and he was the first of his race to engage in trade. His wife came from a vastly different ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... logs were made by their owners, they reflected the axemen's skill. There were two styles of log architecture; the shanty with corners criss-cross, called hog-pen finish, and the other, the house with the corners neatly finished, called dovetail finish. In Sanger it was a social black eye to live in a house of the first kind. The residents were considered "scrubs" or "riff-raff" by those whose superior axemanship had provided the more neatly finished ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton

... deflected into various by-ways. I once knew a parrot who was employed by a sailor-man to curse for him when his own speech was suspended by liquor. He could also whistle ballads and polkas, and had attained an astonishing proficiency in these arts; for, by long practice, he could dovetail curses and whistles in a most energetic and, indeed, astonishing manner. It would often project two whistles and a curse, sometimes two curses and a whistle, while all the time keeping faithfully to the tune of 'The Sailor's Grave' or another. It was a highly cultivated and erudite person. As it ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens

... than you would have stumbled into such an artfully prepared snare, baited as it was with the hope of catching Mortlake in a plot to destroy your aeroplane. But now I'm going to tell you my experiences, and we can see if they dovetail ...
— The Girl Aviators' Sky Cruise • Margaret Burnham

... according to his lights he had a right to feel—that they stood pledged, made it hard for him to get down to fundamentals and consider rationally the question of marriage, of their future, of how his appointed work could be made to dovetail with the union of two such diverse personalities as ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... another. The length of the outside walls is first determined; whereupon the lowest log is let a little way into the earth, and a groove is cut on the upper side with a deep notch at each end. The next log is placed on the top of it, each end being so cut as to dovetail into the others at right angles; thus one log is placed upon another until the destined height of the wall is reached. Doors and windows are afterwards sawed out; and the rafters are fixed on in the usual fashion. The roof is formed of rough slabs of wood called shingles; the interstices ...
— Afar in the Forest • W.H.G. Kingston

... has now become a world-wide conception. In order to secure a balance of power between the European States it is no longer sufficient to settle European frontiers; it is necessary to settle and, as it were, dovetail into each other the economic interests of the European countries in Africa, Asia, and the Southern Pacific. It is also necessary to define the relations of European countries to the States in North and ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,



Words linked to "Dovetail" :   mortise joint, fit, dovetail plane, mortise-and-tenon joint



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