Rivet

A rivet is metallic pin with ahead, used for uniting two plates or pieces of material together, by passing it through them and then beating or pressing down the point so that it shall spread out and for masecond head; apin orbolt headed or clinched at both ends.

 Before being installed a rivet consists of a smooth cylindrical shaft with a head on one end. The end opposite the head is called the back-tail. On installation the rivet is placed in a punched or drilled hole, and the tail is upset or bucked, so that it expands to about 1.5 times the original shaft diameter, holding the rivet in place. To distinguish between the two ends of the rivet, the original head is called the factory head and the deformed end is called the shop head or buck-tail.

Because there is effectively a head on each end of an installed rivet, it can support tension loads, however it is much more capable of supporting shear loads. Bolts and screws are better suited for tension applications.

Fastenings used in traditional wooden boat building, like copper nails and clinch bolts which work on the same principle as the rivet but were in use long before the term rivet came about and they are usually classified among the nails and bolts respectively. 

(reference by Wikipedia)