tail

Limited; abridged; reduced; curtailed.

Adjective

  1. Limited; abridged; reduced; curtailed.
    • estate tail

Origin

From Anglo-Norman, probably from a shortened form of entail.

Noun anatomy, medicine

  1. The caudal appendage of an animal that is attached to their posterior and near the anus or cloaca.
    • Most primates have a tail and fangs.
  2. An object or part of an object resembling a tail in shape, such as the thongs on a cat-o'-nine-tails; a strand of material hanging from something.
    • Duretus writes a great praise of the Distill'd waters of those tails that hang on Willow Trees. - 1672, Gideon Harvey, Morbus Anglicus: or the Anatomy of Consumptions, page 112:
    • Using a thin tapestry needle, weave the warp tails back into the fabric in a warpwise direction and trim off the excess. - 2026, Emily Barth, “Woolly Cocoon Bags”, in Handwoven, volume XLVII, number 1, page 37:
  3. The back, last, lower, or inferior part of anything.
  4. The feathers attached to the pygostyle of a bird.
  5. The tail-end of any object.
    • And the Lord shall make thee the head, and not the taile, […] - 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Deuteronomy 28:13:
    • It was soon over, and the unmoved magistrate calmly ordained that Deborah Williams, Elizabeth and Faith Wilson, should be tied to a cart's tail, and thus led through the principal streets of the town, receiving during...
  6. The rear structure of an aircraft, the empennage.
  7. The visible stream of dust and gases blown from a comet by the solar wind.
  8. The latter part of a time period or event, or (collectively) persons or objects represented in this part.
  9. The part of a distribution most distant from the mode.
    • long tail
  10. One who surreptitiously follows another.
  11. The lower order of batsmen in the batting order, usually specialist bowlers.
  12. The lower loop of the letters in the Roman alphabet, as in g, q or y.

    Synonyms: descender

Origin

Etymology tree Proto-Germanic *taglą Proto-West Germanic *tagl Old English tæġl Middle English tayl English tail From Middle English tail, tayl, teil, from Old English tæġl (“tail”), from Proto-West Germanic *tagl, from Proto-Germanic *taglą (“hair, fiber; hair of a tail”), from Proto-Indo-European *doḱ- (“hair of the tail”), from Proto-Indo-European *deḱ- (“to tear, fray, shred”). Cognate with Scots tail (“tail”), Saterland Frisian Tail (“tail, end”), West Frisian teil (“tail”), Dutch teil (“tail, haulm, blade”), Low German Tagel (“twisted scourge, whip of thongs and ropes; end of a rope”), German Zagel (“tail”), dialectal Danish tavl (“hair of the tail”), Swedish tagel (“hair of the tail, horsehair”), Norwegian tagl (“tail”), Icelandic tagl (“tail, horsetail, ponytail”), Gothic 𐍄𐌰𐌲𐌻 (tagl, “hair”). In some senses, apparently by a generalization of the usual opposition between head and...

Forms

tails

Hyponyms

coattail cocktail magnetotail pigtail rattail shirttail

Related

cat-o'-nine-tails chase one's tail have the world by the tail Otter Tail County tail covert tail feather tail fin tail light tail wagging the dog turn tail caudal

Derived

antitail astrotail at the tail bangtail bang tail bang-tail barbtail beaver tail beavertail betail bigtail blue rat's tail bluetail boattail bobtail bonytail box tail bristle-tail bristletail broadtail broken tail broomtail browntail brown-tail moth

Noun law

  1. Limitation of inheritance to certain heirs.
    • tail male
    • in tail

Related

entail

Verb

  1. To hold by the end; said of a timber when it rests upon a wall or other support; with in or into
  2. To swing with the stern in a certain direction; said of a vessel at anchor.
    • This vessel tails downstream.
  3. To follow or hang to, like a tail; to be attached closely to, as that which can not be evaded.
    • Nevertheless his bond of two thousand pounds, wherewith he was tailed, continued uncancelled. - 1655, Thomas Fuller, The Church-history of Britain; […], London: […] Iohn Williams […], →OCLC, (please specify |book=I to...
  4. To follow and observe surreptitiously.
    • Tail that car!
  5. To pull or draw by the tail.
    • The conqu'ring foe they soon afailid, First Trulla stav'd, and Cerdon tail'd - 1662 (indicated as 1663), [Samuel Butler], “[The First Part of Hudibras]”, in Hudibras. The First and Second Parts. […], London: […] John...

Forms

tails tailing tailed