dovetailing

Verb

dovetail (third-person singular simple present dovetails, present participle dovetailing, simple past and past participle dovetailed)

1. (transitive) 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
2. (figuratively, transitive) To combine or fit (things) together well.
   • The executive board dovetailed its decision neatly with the prior projects the company had taken up.
3. (figuratively, transitive) 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...
4. (figuratively, transitive) To seamlessly move a melody from one instrument to another.
5. (figuratively, intransitive) Of several things: to combine or fit together well.
   • The parts of your essay should dovetail so that it is cohesive and coherent.
6. (intransitive) 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

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