tailgate

A hinged board or hatch at the rear of a vehicle that can be lowered for loading and unloading.

Noun

  1. A hinged board or hatch at the rear of a vehicle that can be lowered for loading and unloading.
    • Drop the tailgate, please, and I'll load these pallets.
    • When they first attached tailgates to cars, we were hooked. By the 1970s, wagons with names like Vista Cruiser and Town & Country sported tailgates as big as dining tables. - 2007, Stephen Linn, The Ultimate Tailgater's...

    Synonyms: tailboard

  2. The hinged rear door of a hatchback.
    • Open up the tailgate, please, and retrieve her suitcases.

    Synonyms: hatch

  3. The downstream gate in the lock on a canal or river, or in an irrigation system.
    • The locktender closed the tailgate and the chamber started to fill.

    Antonyms: headgate

    Hypernyms: sluice gate watergate water gate gate

  4. Ellipsis of tailgate party.
    • Are you coming to the tailgate? We'll be grilling brisket.
    • “You don’t want to be at a tailgate having fish and chips,” said Elanja O’Toole, who wore a San Diego Chargers jersey while her husband, Llian O’Toole, wore a St. Louis Rams jersey and face paint. - 2013 September 29,...
    • The website was created by Harry St. John, a former college athlete who wanted to take the agony out of managing tailgates. - 2013 November 8, Nancy M. Better, “Tailgating Gets Online Playbooks”, in The New York Times,...
  5. A tunnel for drawing spent air away from the working face of a mine.

    Coordinate Terms: maingate

Origin

From tail + gate. Compare liftgate.

Forms

tailgates tail-gate tail gate

Derived

tailgate party

Verb

  1. To drive dangerously close behind another vehicle.
    • That idiot has been tailgating me for the last five minutes.
    • She also tailgated them at high speed in her convertible yellow Mercedes. - 2002 October 19, Helen Carter, “That's no lady - that's the heiress who taunted neighbours”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 08...
    • Last week the UK government announced a crackdown on unsafe driving. From now on, those of us spotted tailgating or lane hogging will face on-the-spot fines of £100 and three penalty points. - 2013 August 19, Chris...
  2. To follow another person through access control on their access, rather than on one’s own credentials, especially when entering a door controlled by a card reader.
    • An email circulated to ABC employees says Gallagher is believed to have tailgated staff walking through the building’s high-security doors. - 2018 September 10, “ABC tightens Sydney security after man allegedly...

    Synonyms: piggyback draft

  3. To privately purchase or sell a security immediately after trading in the same security for a client.

    Coordinate Terms: front run

  4. To have a tailgate party.
    • “Hey, what are you guys doing?” “Dude, we're gonna tailgate the tryouts.” “Oh, shit. That's a good idea. Oh, you gonna bust out Green Man, bro?” “No. No Green Man.” “What's Green Man?” “Well, in high school, Charlie was...
    • The point, Goldstein discovered through a lot of long days hanging out in parking lots, is that tailgating — the gustatory madness, the multigenerational camaraderie, the decked-out vans — is as essential a part of...

Forms

tailgates tailgating tailgated tail-gate tail gate

Related

security distance draft slipstream

Derived

homegate tailgater