dowel

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun A usually round pin that fits tightly into a corresponding hole to fasten or align two adjacent pieces.
• noun A piece of wood driven into a wall to act as an anchor for nails.
• transitive verb To fasten or align with dowels.
• transitive verb To equip with dowels.

from The Century Dictionary.

• To fasten together, as two boards, by pins inserted in the edges: as, to dowel pieces which are to form the head of a cask. Sometimes written dowl.
• noun A wooden or metallic pin or tenon used for securing together two pieces of wood, Stone, etc.
• noun A piece of wood driven into a wall to receive nails of skirtings, etc.; a dook.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun (Mech.) A pin, or block, of wood or metal, fitting into holes in the abutting portions of two pieces, and being partly in one piece and partly in the other, to keep them in their proper relative position.
• noun A piece of wood driven into a wall, so that other pieces may be nailed to it.
• noun a joint secured by a dowel or dowels.
• noun a dowel. See Dowel, n., 1.
• transitive verb To fasten together by dowels; to furnish with dowels.

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

• noun A pin, or block, of wood or metal, fitting into holes in the abutting portions of two pieces, and being partly in one piece and partly in the other, to keep them in their proper relative position.
• noun A wooden rod, as one to make short pins from.
• noun construction A piece of wood or similar material fitted into a surface not suitable for fastening so that other pieces may fastened to it.
• verb transitive To fasten together with dowels.
• verb transitive To furnish with dowels.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun a fastener that is inserted into holes in two adjacent pieces and holds them together