Mortise and Tenon Joint

under construction 4-16-09

Mortise and tenons are probably used more than any other joints in woodworking. Practical Woodworking March 18 1990, Number 2 See Sources

mortise, mortice (mor'tis), n. [F. mortaise, fr. OF. mor'tise, n1 Ar murtazz fastened, fixed in.]

1. A cavity, hole, or the like, usually rectangular, into or through which some other part of any arrangement of parts

fits or passes, specifically a cavity cut into a piece of timber or other material to receive a tenon. (Figuratively, that which secures a stable foundation.) 2. Woodworking and Joinery. a. A cavity, hole, or recess, usually rectangular in shape, cut in the surface of a piece of timber, etc., to receive a tenon. Also in extended use.

The information above adapted from Oxford English Dictionary (online ed.) and Webster's New International Dictionary, 2d edtion. 1952.

The quote from Caroline Alexander's article in the box below -- on Stonehenge, a stone monument in Great Britain estimated to be 4,500 years old -- shows that, as a concept, the mortise and tenon joint traces far back into our history.

... Stonehenge appears as a cluster of insignificant protrusions on the big, otherwise featureless plain; and yet, even from this profane and glancing vantage, the great-shouldered silhouette is so unmistakably prehistoric that the effect is momentarily of a time warp cracking onto a lost world. Up close, amid the confusion of broken and standing stones, it still seems smaller than its reputation, notwithstanding the obvious feat represented by the erection of the famous sarsen stones; the largest weighs as much as 50 tons. Unique today, Stonehenge was probably also unique in its own time, some 4,500 years ago - a stone monument modeled on timber precedents. Indeed, its massive lintels are bound to their uprights by mortise-and-tenon joints taken straight from carpentry, an eloquent indication of just how radically new this hybrid monument must have been. It is this newness, this assured awareness that nothing like it had existed before, this revelatory quality, that is still palpable in its ruined stones. The people who built Stonehenge had discovered something hitherto unknown, hit upon some truth, turned a corner-there is no doubt that the purposefully placed stones are fraught with meaning... . Source: Caroline Alexander, "If the Stones Could Speak: Searching for the Meaning of Stonehenge", National Geographic 213 No 6 June 2008, page 36

Examples of mortise and tenon in use:

c1475 Catholicon Anglicum (BL Add. 15562) f. 82v;

, A mortase, castratura, ligium.

1546 BP. S. GARDINER Declar. True Articles 35 b;

That were euen as wysely done of vs, as if a man wolde frame a tenaunte without a mortesse.

1592 R. GREENE Quip for Vpstart Courtier sig. F3;

The ioyner, though an honest man, yet he maketh his ioynts weake, and putteth in sappe in the morteses.

1677 etc : Joseph Moxon ...Mechanick Exercises, or the Doctrine of Handyworks Applied to the Art of Printing , page 80:

If you were to make a Tennant upon a piece of Fur, and a Mortess to receive it in a piece of Oak.

1697 S. PATRICK Comm. Exod. (xxvi. 19) 510;

There were two silver Sockets for each Plank, whose Tenons sinking into these Mortaises [etc.].

c1710 C. FIENNES Diary (1888) 10;

Two stones stands [sic] up and one laid on their tops with morteses into each other.

1753 F. PRICE Brit. Carpenter (ed. 3) 8;

Double, or pully mortices, (as they are call'd).

1823

Source: Peter Nicholson, The Mechanic's companion: or, the elements and practice of carpentry, joinery, bricklaying, masonry, slating, plastering, painting, smithing, and turning, comprehending the latest improvements and containing a full description of the tools belonging to each branch of business; with copious ... London: James Locker, 1832, page 119;

Girders..are made with mortises, in order to receive the tenons at the end of the binding-joists.

1852 T. WRIGHT Celt, Roman, & Saxon ii. 59;

Each of the upright stones had two tenons..which fitted into mortices or hollows.

1887 G. W. HAZELTINE Early Hist. Ellicott, N.Y. 174;

The carpenter had to lay out the frame, cutting a tenon here, and digging out a mortice there.

1903 'T. COLLINS' Such is Life i. 12;

The post, being wild and free in the grain, had burst along the two mortices.

1991 Traditional Woodworking April-May 6/1;

Wedging can give greater strength..by causing the tenon to expand within its mortise, so increasing the grip. b. mortise and tenon n. a joint composed of a mortise and a tenon (also: the component parts of this); the method of joining pieces of wood, etc., by means of a mortise and a tenon. Freq. attrib., esp. in mortise and tenon joint. Cf. tenon and mortise at TENON n.1 b.

1758 Philosophical Transactions 1757 (Royal Society) 50 200;

They were joined together at the ends with mortoise and tenon.

1802 W. PALEY Nat. Theol. viii. 118;

There is the hinge joint, and the mortice and tenon joint.

1859 J. M. JEPHSON & L. REEVE Narr. Walking Tour Brittany xii. 200;

Horizontal stones are laid across the tops of the menhirs, and fastened with mortise and tenon.

1904 B. C. A. WINDLE Remains of the Prehistoric Age in England viii. 185;

An ellipse of hewn sarsen trilithons, with mortise and tenon connections.

1847 A C SMEATON Builder's Pocket Manual, page 84, and figs 29-231;

The carpenter usually connects his timbers either by notching, or by mortice and tenon. Dovetail joints are sometimes used in carpentry, but they ought not ever to be adopted, for they will always draw when the timber shrinks, and the oblique surface of the dovetail tends to force the timbers apart, acting as though it were a wedge..