Also 7–8 tenant, tennant, 8 tenent, tenont. [f. prec. sb.]
1. trans. To fix together with tenon and mortise.
1649. Blithe, Eng. Improv. Impr. (1653), 203. The beam … runs down into the plough-head, and is there tenanted and pinned into the head.
1665. J. Webb, Stone-Heng (1725), 91. If mortised and tenanted.
1711. W. Sutherland, Shipbuild. Assist., 25. Tenant [in Errata corr. to Tenon] the Post into the Keel.
1769. Falconer, Dict. Marine (1789), C iv b. The stern-post … is tenented into the keel.
1844. Stephens, Bk. Farm, II. 229. The whole of the posts are likewise tenoned into the sill.
b. fig. To join or fix firmly and securely.
1596. Bp. Andrewes, Serm., Luke xvi. 25 (1841), II. 86. We tenon both these together, as antecedent and consequent.
1659. O. Walker, Instruct. Oratory, 18. The several pieces of Invention … must next be sowed and tenanted together.
1856. Whitman, in Scott. Rev. (1883), 285. My foothold is tenon’d and mortis’d in granite.
2. To furnish or fit with a tenon.
1771. Luckombe, Hist. Print., 302. These two Rails are each of them tenoned at each end.
1793. Smeaton, Edystone L., § 174. Cramping the stones together, as well as tenoning the ends.
1873. J. Richards, Wood-w. Factories, 156. For this we have the remedy of tenoning both ends at the same time.
b. intr. To engage or fit in by or as by a tenon.
1797. Encycl. Brit. (ed. 3), XVII. 404/1. The two beams … should be placed conformable to the two uprights, so that they may tenon in them.
1842. Civil Eng. & Arch. Jrnl., V. 361/2. They tenon between the strings e and n.
1845. R. Brown, Sacred Arch., 186. The door-frames in the staircase walls to be tenon’d into the stone floor, and securely fixed to the walls.
Hence Tenoned ppl. a., furnished or made with a tenon; Tenoner, a machine for forming tenons.
1771. Luckombe, Hist. Print., 323. [He] besmears the whole tenoned ends and tenons well with soap.
1875. Carpentry & Join., 49. The tenoned and mortised ends of the pieces.
1891. Cent. Dict., Tenoner.
