Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb Present participle of dovetail.
  • noun The situation in which things are dovetailed.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • With respect to axiomatics, the logics obtained by fibring (or by a variant of fibring called dovetailing) can, in some cases, be axiomatized by the union of the (schema) axioms of the given logics.

    Combining Logics Carnielli, Walter 2007

  • Q Mike, kind of dovetailing off of Stewart's question, now that the transition team is formed, what's the thinking going on in terms of vetting so he can avoid some of the bumps in the road you had in the first go-around?

    Press Briefing By Mike Mccurry ITY National Archives 1996

  • It is unnecessary to say that "dovetailing" is the process of mutually accommodating each other's legs followed by stage-coach and onmibus passengers; but the term-certainly the first time I had ever heard it used in that sense -- shocked and alarmed the modesty of the worthy Mrs. Peck of Illinoy.

    Wild Life in the Rocky Mountains 1916

  • It was, too, of oak some inches thick, and fitted upon the chest by a kind of dovetailing at the edges.

    After London Or, Wild England Richard Jefferies 1867

  • I think you will see us kind of dovetailing very beautifully into that.

    SeekingAlpha.com: Home Page 2008

  • The legends which fill up the dark space with _eponymous_ heroes, as they have been called -- heroes who take the name of a tribe in order to bestow it back upon the tribe; for it was the Greek mode of thinking at these early periods to presume that every tribe, or _gens_, had a common progenitor from whom it took its title and origin, -- these legends are at one time treated with the due suspicion which should attend upon them; yet, at another, if a fortunate congruity, some lucky "dovetailing," can be observed amongst them, they are raised into the rank of historical evidence.

    Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 Various

  • Mr. Schmidt, who is best known for his music for "A Minister's Wife" and "Adding Machine," has written a score full of delicate, slow-shifting chords that waft through the night air like wispy clouds in a soft breeze, dovetailing them with the natural sounds of the woods that surround APT's Up-the-Hill Theatre.

    The Warrior's Dilemma Terry Teachout 2011

  • "It's not necessarily about Henri Cartier-Bresson's 'decisive moment'; it's about the collision or dovetailing of images that add up to a greater whole."

    A Storyteller Is Seen With New Eyes Lana Bortolot 2012

  • And given the timing of Napolitano's statements dovetailing with the events unfolding in Tahrir Square, I almost thought it was another play on fear.

    Kristen Breitweiser: Rooting for Egypt Kristen Breitweiser 2011

  • No other rule change has ever twanged the British footballing psyche so seductively, dovetailing perfectly as it does with the ingrained reliance on the long pass out of defence.

    Can Joe Hart save himself from the curse of the England keeper? | Barney Ronay 2011

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