dowel

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English

Plastic and metal dowels

Alternative forms

Etymology

From Middle English dowle, dule, of uncertain origin. Perhaps from Old French doelle (“the hollow part of a tool where the handle is”), from Frankish *duli (“hollow tube, pipe”), from Proto-Germanic *dulją (“pipe”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰel- (“curvature, hollow”). If so, then cognate with French douelle, douille.

Alternatively from Middle Low German dövel (“peg, plug”), from Old Saxon *dubil, from Proto-Germanic *dubilaz. If so, then cognate with Dutch deuvel (“wooden peg”), German Dübel (“dowel”).

Pronunciation

Noun

dowel (plural dowels)

  1. 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.
  2. A wooden rod, as one to make short pins from.
    • 2006, Steven Caney, Lauren House, Steven Caney's Ultimate Building Book, page 264:
      This twenty-four-piece starter set uses twelve thirty-six-inch-long dowels (or nine forty-eight-inch dowels) cut to these rod lengths. Lay out the cuts so you use the entire length of each dowel without any leftover scraps.
  3. (construction) A piece of wood or similar material fitted into a surface not suitable for fastening so that other pieces may be fastened to it.

Coordinate terms

Derived terms

Translations

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Verb

dowel (third-person singular simple present dowels, present participle dowelling or doweling, simple past and past participle dowelled or doweled)

  1. (transitive) To fasten together with dowels.
    • 1971, Gwen White, Antique Toys And Their Background, page 79:
      The wheels were solid, two half discs dowelled against the hub, and the chariots were pulled along by oxen or asses.
  2. (transitive) To furnish with dowels.
    A cooper dowels pieces for the head of a cask.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “dowel”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)

References

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