tail

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See also: Tail, taił, and täil

English

English Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia
Two ring-tailed lemurs, each with a long tail.

Pronunciation

Etymology 1

From (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Middle English tail, tayl, teil, from (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Old English tæġl (“tail”), from (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Proto-Germanic *taglaz, *taglą (“hair, fiber; hair of a tail”), from (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Proto-Indo-European *doḱ- (“hair of the tail”), from (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Proto-Indo-European *deḱ- (“to tear, fray, shred”). Cognate with Scots tail (“tail”), Dutch teil (“tail, haulm, blade”), Low German tagel (“a twisted scourge, a whip of thongs and ropes, a rope”), German Zagel (“tail”), (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Danish dialectal 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 tail.

Noun

tail (plural tails)

  1. (anatomy) The caudal appendage of an animal that is attached to its posterior and near the anus.
    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.
    • 1672, Gideon Harvey, Morbus Anglicus: or the Anatomy of Consumptions‎[1], page 112:
      Duretus writes a great praise of the Distill'd waters of those tails that hang on Willow Trees.
  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 an object, e.g. the rear of an aircraft's fuselage, containing the tailfin.
    • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Deuteronomy 28:13:
      And the Lord shall make thee the head, and not the taile, […]
    • 1862, Ballou's Dollar Monthly Magazine (volume 16, page 83)
      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 their progress twenty lashes each, well laid on, upon the naked back.
  6. The rear structure of an aircraft, the empennage.
  7. (astronomy) 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. (statistics) The part of a distribution most distant from the mode; as, a long tail.
  10. One who surreptitiously follows another.
  11. (cricket) The lower order of batsmen in the batting order, usually specialist bowlers.
  12. (typography) The lower loop of the letters in the Roman alphabet, as in g, q or y.
  13. (chiefly in the plural) The side of a coin not bearing the head; normally the side on which the monetary value of the coin is indicated; the reverse.
  14. (mathematics) All the last terms of a sequence, from some term on.
    A sequence is said to be frequently if every tail of the sequence contains .
  15. (now colloquial, chiefly US) The buttocks or backside.
  16. (slang) The penis of a person or animal.
  17. (slang, uncountable) Sexual intercourse.
    I'm gonna get me some tail tonight.
  18. (kayaking) The stern; the back of the kayak.
  19. A train or company of attendants; a retinue.
    • 1814, Walter Scott, Waverley: Or, 'Tis Sixty Years Since‎[2], page 238:
      Ah! if you Saxon Duinhé-wassal (English gentleman) saw but the chief with his tail on. […] that is, with all his usual followers
  20. (anatomy) The distal tendon of a muscle.
  21. (entomology) A filamentous projection on the tornal section of each hind wing of certain butterflies.
  22. A downy or feathery appendage of certain achens, formed of the permanent elongated style.
  23. (surgery) A portion of an incision, at its beginning or end, which does not go through the whole thickness of the skin, and is more painful than a complete incision; called also tailing.
  24. One of the strips at the end of a bandage formed by splitting the bandage one or more times.
  25. (nautical) A rope spliced to the strap of a block, by which it may be lashed to anything.
  26. (music) The part of a note which runs perpendicularly upward or downward from the head; the stem.
    (Can we find and add a quotation of Moore (Encyc. of Music) to this entry?)
  27. (mining) A tailing.
  28. (architecture) The bottom or lower portion of a member or part such as a slate or tile.
  29. (colloquial, dated) A tailcoat.
Synonyms
Hyponyms
Derived terms
Translations
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
See also

Verb

tail (third-person singular simple present tails, present participle tailing, simple past and past participle tailed)

  1. (transitive) To follow and observe surreptitiously.
    Tail that car!
  2. (architecture) To hold by the end; said of a timber when it rests upon a wall or other support; with in or into
  3. (nautical) To swing with the stern in a certain direction; said of a vessel at anchor.
    This vessel tails downstream.
  4. To follow or hang to, like a tail; to be attached closely to, as that which can not be evaded.
    • (Can we date this quote by Fuller and provide title, author’s full name, and other details?)
      Nevertheless his bond of two thousand pounds, wherewith he was tailed, continued uncancelled.
  5. To pull or draw by the tail.
    (Can we find and add a quotation of Hudibras to this entry?)
Translations

Etymology 2

From (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Anglo-Norman, probably from a shortened form of entail.

Adjective

tail

  1. (law) Limited; abridged; reduced; curtailed.
    estate tail

Noun

tail

  1. (law) Limitation of inheritance to certain heirs.
    tail male — limitation to male heirs
    in tail — subject to such a limitation

Anagrams

Middle English

Noun

tail

  1. Alternative form of tayl

Welsh

Noun

tail

  1. shit, dung

Derived terms

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