entrail

present singular third person entrails · participle present entrailing · participle past entrailed · past entrailed

1. archaicTo interweave or bind.

   Himself hid by entrailing foliage, / Betwixt whose leafy meshes he could see / That false pair's dalliance and badinage.

   1885, John Barlas, The Bloody Heart

   2 more examples

   And in the thickest covert of that shade / There was a pleasant arbour, not by art / But of the trees' own inclination made, / With wanton ivy twine entrailed athwart, / And eglantine and caprifole among, / Fashioned above within their inmost part / That neither Phoebus' beams could through them throng / Nor AEolus' sharp blast could work them any wrong.

   1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, Book III Canto VI

   1598, William Cecil, letter to his son, reprinted in Annals of the reformation and establishment of religion, 1824, by John Strype, page 479, Trust not any with thy life, credit, or estate: for it is mere folly for a man to entrail himself to his friend; as though, occasion being offered, he shall not dare to become his enemy.

2. governmentTo outline in black.

   A cross entrailed.

   2 more examples

   "Entrailed: outlined, always with black lines. See Adumbration, and Cross entrailed."

   1847, Henry Gough, John Henry Parker, A Glossary of Terms Used in British Heraldry: With a Chronological Table ..., Oxford, page 124

   "Entrailed, a Cross, P.7, n.20, Lee says, the colour need not be named, for it is always sable."

   1775, Hugh Clark, Thomas Wormull, An Introduction to Heraldry: Containing the Origin and Use of Arms; Rules ..., H. Washbourne, page 122

plural entrails

1. singularusuallysingular of entrails; an internal organ of an animal.

   Did an entrail-reading priest find something nasty in the offal?

   2006, Robert Ludlum, The Ambler Warning, page 427

   2 more examples

   She might even bust an entrail if she went on a little farther in the official code

   1957, Bill Bryson, “They Still Ride 'Em Rough”, in Baseball Digest, volume 16, number 8, page 57

   Those blackguards have no more respect for an entrail, or a sinew, or a vital organ, than if they were gutting dog-fish.

   1922-1976, Liam O'Flaherty, “The Post Office”, in Liam O'Flaherty: the collected stories, page 55

2. archaicEntanglement; fold.

   "About her cursed head, whose folds displaid / Were stretcht now forth at length without entraile."

   1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, page 1.1.18