dovetail
verbEtymology The noun is derived from dove + tail. The verb is derived from the noun.
1
Arts, Business, Carpentry, Construction, Crafts, Hobbies, Lifestyle, Manufacturing, Woodworking To unite (components) with a dovetail (noun sense 2.1) or similar joint.
- [T]heſe Piles ought to be placed contrary to the Stillings, vvhich ſurround or croſs them every three Feet, and Dove-tail'd into the ſquare Supporters; […]1733, Philip Miller, “WINE-PRESS”, in The Gardeners Dictionary: […], 2nd edition, volume I, London: […] C[harles] Rivington, […], →OCLC, column 2:
- In house-building it is further forbidden [by Sultan Muhammed Shah] to dovetail or make the ends of the timbers (e.g. of the roof) fit accurately together, and also to build two verandahs, one on each side of the house, with their floors on a level with the floor of the main building; if two verandahs are used, the floor of one must be lower than that of the main building (kelek anak).1900, Walter William Skeat, “Man and His Place in the Universe”, in Malay Magic: Being an Introduction to the Folklore and Popular Religion of the Malay Peninsula, London: Macmillan and Co.; New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, →OCLC, footnote 1, page 33:
2
Figuratively To combine or fit (things) together well.
- The executive board dovetailed its decision neatly with the prior projects the company had taken up.
- Through my new project, I dovetail my interests in botany and programming.
3 more examples
- Close contacts are also maintained between the chief operating officers of the railways and the movement and transport officers of the Service departments to dovetail railway transport into the schemes of the fighting forces.1943 March–April, John R. Hind, “The British Railways at War”, in The Railway Magazine, Sutton, London: IPC Transport Press, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 95:
- I felt that through the combined study of psychology and linguistics I would find out how children learned language, and that I would be able to dovetail this knowledge into my business career in Japan.1988, Kenji Hakuta, “Why Bilinguals?”, in Frank S. Kessel, editor, The Development of Language and Language Researchers: Essays in Honor of Roger Brown, Hillsdale, N.J.; Hove, East Sussex: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, →ISBN, page 299:
- This “markup shock” interpretation of the role of binding [constraints] dovetails well with related work by Bernanke and Blanchard (2023), which uses an empirical model to argue that product market shocks (which raise prices given wages) explain a large share of recent US inflation.2024, Diego Comin, Robert C. Johnson, Callum Jones, Supply Chain Constraints and Inflation [preprint], p. 2
3
Computing, Engineering, Mathematics, Natural sciences, Physical sciences, Sciences Figuratively To interweave (a number of algorithms or subprograms) so that they can be run more or less simultaneously.
- However, we can construct a single master algorithm M that DPExact learns from unknown distribution D by simply dovetailing the algorithms A. The precise way in which we dovetail the algorithms depends on whether our goal is time or query efficiency.2002, Nader H. Bshouty, Jeffrey C. Jackson, Christino Tamon, “Exploring Learnability between Exact and PAC”, in Jyrki Kivinen, Robert H. Sloan, editors, Computational Learning Theory: 15th Annual Conference on Computational Learning Theory, COLT 2002, Sydney, Australia, July 8–10, 2002: Proceedings (Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNAI); 2375; Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence), Berlin; Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag, →ISBN, →ISSN, page 248:
4
Entertainment, Lifestyle, Music Figuratively To seamlessly move a melody from one instrument to another.
5
Figuratively Of several things: to combine or fit together well.
- The parts of your essay should dovetail so that it is cohesive and coherent.
- The task now facing Mr Crook and his team in the multi-disciplinary programme is sequencing the works going forward, to ensure track, signalling, station works and overhead line installations dovetail together.2019 October, Philip Sherratt, “Midland Main Line Upgrade Presses On”, in Modern Railways, Shepperton, Surrey: Ian Allan Publishing, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 60:
6
To adapt to something; to fit in.
- If I have a row with any fellow, he’s always the first to taunt me with being what he and his friends have made me. I don’t feel it so much now. I used to at first. One dovetails into all that sort of thing in time, and the edge of your feelings, as I may say, wears off by degrees.1851, Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor, published 1861:
- Derived terms
- dovetailed, dovetailing, dovetailer
- Related terms
- join