Other forms: dovetailed, dovetails, dovetailing
To dovetail is to fit together neatly, as though the two parts had been cut for each other. Two plans, two timetables, two arguments.
The word comes from woodworking, where a dovetail joint interlocks in a row of wedge shapes that look like a bird's tail and holds fast without any glue. That image does all the work in the figurative sense: schedules that dovetail, a report that dovetails with the evidence, her research dovetailing neatly with his. It usually takes with. As a noun, a dovetail is the joint itself, and a carpenter will tell you it is the strongest one there is.
1verbdovetailTo fit together neatly and work well as a pair.
“Her findings dovetail with the earlier study.”
synonyms: mesh
2nouninterlockingAn interlocking wedge-shaped joint in woodwork.
“The drawer is held together with dovetails.”
A dovetail is named for the bird. The joint spreads the way a dove's tail does, and the carpentry came first; things that dovetail neatly borrowed the image afterwards.
Built from
The noun is derived from dove + tail. The verb is derived from the noun.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Man Called Ove
First appears in chapter 10 of A Man Called Ove.
Practise this word