an excellent tool for joining together pieces of wood

A power tool designed to notch or mortise holes in two pieces of wood to be joined together. Biscuits are inserted into the notches along with wood glue to bind the two pieces of wood together.

If you have to make a lot of wood joints, this power tool is what you need. Use it to make complementary crescent-shape slots in mating wood pieces. The joint is then reinforced with oval splines called "biscuits" that fit perfectly into the slots. Home Improvement Encyclopedia

A specialized power tool made to cut slots that accept hardwood biscuits. The tool most often resembles an angle grinder with a precision fence and base added on. These parts of the tool work together to align a retractable circular blade that plunges into the mating joint members at the desired slot location. Each plunge creates one half of the biscuit slot.

A biscuit joiner or sometimes plate joiner is a woodworking tool used to join two pieces of wood together. A biscuit joiner uses a small (4" - 100mm) circular saw blade to cut a crescent shaped hole in the opposite edges of two pieces of wood or wood composite panels. An oval shaped compressed wooden biscuit is covered with glue, or glue is applied in the slot.