dutchman

9.5

A small piece of wood used to fill a gap in woodwork

noun
/ˈdʌtʃmən/

Specialized

: taco

The carpenter used a small piece of wood as a dutchman to repair the damaged table leg.

Examples

And once I have removed this piece, I can create a little Dutchman to fill it.
And what that does is it still allows a recess for a wedge shaped Dutchman to inlay.
To fix the hole in the wall, they inserted a dutchman made of sturdy plywood.
She skillfully crafted a dutchman to fill the gap left in the wooden cabinet.

Compounds

Flying Dutchman

Literature

1 9.9

A ghost ship said to sail the seas forever and bring bad luck

Surface Forms

dutchman singular

dutchmen plural

Morphology

dutchman = Dutch + man (opaque) = dutch + man

Although the word is formed from 'Dutch' + 'man', the specialized woodworking meaning 'patch' is idiomatic and not derivable from the components by a typical learner.

Etymology

Dutchman probably comes from the name Dutch, because Dutch ship and furniture makers often used small patches to fix worn parts and the patch itself became known by their name. So a Dutchman is a small piece of wood or other material used to 'fill' or 'repair' a gap.