entail

present singular third person entails · participle present entailing · participle past entailed · past entailed · alternative archaic intail

1. transitiveTo imply, require, or invoke.

   This activity will entail careful attention to detail.

   3 more examples

   What mattered to Hegel, and now Leach, is a presupposedly, historically necessary evolution in the structure of political power, entailing the creation of new classes of powerless victims to be sacrificed on the altar of abstract ideological concepts (i.e., “choice”).

   1997 April 12, Richard Ring, “Secular, abortion-believers are the bloodiest lot”, in The Daily News, page A11

   God's immateriality entails the divine attribute of incorporeality, that God is neither a body nor embodied.

   2003, James Porter Moreland, William Lane Craig, Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview, →ISBN, page 507

   It also entailed well-documented disadvantages: a population increase in an unsustaining economy, a battered self-identity, a plague of substance abuse.

   2009 July 24, Holland Cotter, “Postcards From Canada’s ‘New North’”, in The New York Times

2. transitiveTo settle or fix inalienably on a person or thing, or on a person and his descendants or a certain line of descendants; -- said especially of an estate; to bestow as a heritage.

   1754-1762, David Hume, The History of England Allowing them to entail their estates.

   3 more examples

   Mr. Bennet's property consisted almost entirely in an estate of two thousand a year, which, unfortunately for his daughters, was entailed, in default of heirs male, on a distant relation; and their mother's fortune, though ample for her situation in life, could but ill supply the deficiency of his.

   1813 January 27, [Jane Austen], chapter VII, in Pride and Prejudice: […], volume I, London: […] [George Sidney] for T[homas] Egerton, […], →OCLC, page 50

   I here entail The crown to thee and to thine heirs forever.

   c. 1591–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Third Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i]

   Apparently, Henry VII visited the city [Bristol] in 1487, "taking care to entail a sumptuary fine on the citizens because their wives dressed too gaudily".

   2023 January 11, Stephen Roberts, “Bradshaw's Britain: castles and cathedrals”, in RAIL, number 974, page 55

3. obsoletetransitiveTo appoint hereditary possessor.

   To entail him and his heirs unto the crown.

   c. 1591–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Third Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i]

plural entails · alternative archaic intail

1. That which is entailed.

   A power of breaking the ancient entails, and of alienating their estates.

   1754–1762, David Hume, “(please specify the page)”, in [The History of England ], volume (please specify |volume=1 to 6), London: […] A[ndrew] Millar, […]

   1. An estate in fee entailed, or limited in descent to a particular class of issue.
   2. The rule by which the descent is fixed.

      All land acquired by inheritance must follow the Khasi law of entail, by which property descends from the mother to the youngest daughter, and again from the latter to her youngest daughter.

      1907, Philip Richard Thornhagh Gurdon, The Khasis, page 88

2. obsoleteDelicately carved ornamental work; intaglio.

   A worke of rich entayle.

   1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 4