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A mortise is a hole, carefully cut into wood or stone, so that the shaped end of another piece — called a tenon — can slot in and hold firm. Together they make a mortise-and-tenon joint, one of the oldest ways to join wood without relying only on nails. Carpenters, furniture makers, and people who fit doors use the word; you will also meet a mortise lock, which sits in a pocket cut into the edge of the door. It can be a verb too: to mortise is to cut that hole, or to join pieces that way. British spelling sometimes appears as mortice — same thing. It has nothing to do with mortar, the paste between bricks, even though the words look .
榫眼、卯眼（榫卯結構裡「凹進去、讓榫頭插進去」的那個洞）
組成From Middle English morteys, from Old French mortaise, from Arabic murtazz (“fastened”), from irtazza. Same story for the verb.
原始詞典資料5 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，原文照列，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
mortisenoun/ˈmɔː(ɹ).tɪs/
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artsbusinesscarpentryA hole that is made to receive a tenon so as to form a joint.
- If there is much gauging for the same size mortise and tenon to be done, and if a mortise gauge is not handy, a simple improvised gauge for the purpose can easily be made with two pieces of wood and four or five steel sprigs…
- A keyed mortise-and-tenon joint is constructed the same as a doweled mortise and tenon joint except that the tenon projects far enough through the mortise to admit the insertion of a tapering key which draws the mortised piece firmly against the shoulder of the tenon.
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Stability; power of adhesion.
mortiseverb/ˈmɔː(ɹ).tɪs/
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artsbusinesscarpentryTo cut a mortise in.
- A keyed mortise-and-tenon joint is constructed the same as a doweled mortise and tenon joint except that the tenon projects far enough through the mortise to admit the insertion of a tapering key which draws the mortised piece firmly against the shoulder of the tenon.
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artsbusinesscarpentryTo join by a mortise and tenon.
- Sculptures from Mohenjodaro and Tell Asmar in 2400 B.C. show wheels consisting of three pieces of wood mortised together, and bound with leather tyres which were attached with copper nails. These wheels turned in one piece with the axle, which was secured to the body of the sledge with leather thongs.
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mediapublishingtypographyTo adjust the horizontal space between selected pairs of letters; to kern.
資料來源：英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary（CC BY-SA 4.0）。 原文照列，未經改寫。