tail

tail · noun, verb¹

1. Proto-Germanic*taglą
2. Proto-West Germanic*tagl
3. Old Englishtæġl
4. Middle Englishtayl
5. English todaytail

From Middle English tail, taile, taille, tayil, tayl, tayle, tayll, teil, tæȝel, from Old English tæġel, 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”). Cognates Cognate with German Zagel (“tail”), Danish, Faroese, and Icelandic tagl (“tail”), Swedish tagel (“horsehair”), Gothic 𐍄𐌰𐌲𐌻 (tagl, “hair”); also Serbo-Croatian дла̏ка, dlȁka (“single hair”), Slovene dlaka (“single hair”), Northern Kurdish dezî (“cotton, thread”), Sanskrit दशा (daśā, “border, fringe, hem”). In some senses, apparently by a generalization of the usual opposition between head and tail.

tail · adjective, noun²

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

Tail · proper noun³

1. Chinese · semantic loan from尾
2. English todayTail

From tail, a semantic loan from Chinese 尾.

Words from the same roots