[f. JOINT v. + -ER1.] One who or that which joints.
1. Name of various tools. a. Carpentry, etc. A long kind of plane used in dressing the edges of boards, staves, etc., in preparation for jointing them; also, a machine used in jointing staves.
1678. Moxon, Mech. Exerc., iv. § 4 (1683), I. 65. The Joynter is made somewhat longer than the Fore-plane … Its Office is to follow the Fore-plane, and to shoot an edge perfectly straight,… especially when a Joynt is to be shot.
1875. Carpentry & Join., 25. The carpenter uses this jack plane first, and, subsequently, his longer trying plane, and still longer jointer, to put the final touches.
b. Masonry. A tool used for filling with mortar or for marking the joints between courses of brick or stone work.
1703. Moxon, Mech. Exerc., 247. A Jointer of Iron, with which, and the foresaid Rule, they joint the long Joints,… the Cross Joints … being done with the Jointer without the Rule.
1812–6. J. Smith, Panorama Sci. & Art, I. 194. The iron tool used along with the jointing-rule, to mark the joints of brick-work, is called a jointer; its form is nearly that of the letter [symbol], though its flexure is not in proportion so considerable.
c. A bent piece of iron inserted into a wall to strengthen a joint.
1864. in Webster.
2. A workman employed in jointing; esp. one who makes the junctions between parts of an electric wire, etc.
1876. Preece & Sivewright, Telegraphy, 235. Not only should the jointer’s hands be scrupulously clean, but he should see that the wires to be joined are equally so, the copper being scraped bright and clean.
1895. B’ham Weekly Post, 16 March, 4/8. There are plenty of excavators, but the pipe jointers are very scarce.
3. In the West Indies, a common name of Piper geniculatum.
1847. Gosse, Birds of Jamaica, 73. The deserted provision-grounds are overgrown with a thicket, almost impenetrable, of jointer, or jointwood.
4. Comb. Jointer-plane = sense 1 a.
1823. P. Nicholson, Pract. Build., 245. The Jointer-Plane is the longest of all the planes…. It is used for shooting the edges to boards perfectly straight, so that their juncture may scarcely be discernible when their surfaces are joined together.
1881. Young, Every Man his own Mechanic, § 244. Trying-planes and Jointer-planes differ from the jack-plane in being longer and set with a finer cut.
