tail

plural tails

1. anatomyThe caudal appendage of an animal that is attached to their posterior and near the anus or cloaca.

   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; a strand of material hanging from something.

   Duretus writes a great praise of the Distill'd waters of those tails that hang on Willow Trees.

   1672, Gideon Harvey, Morbus Anglicus: or the Anatomy of Consumptions, page 112

   1 more example

   Using a thin tapestry needle, weave the warp tails back into the fabric in a warpwise direction and trim off the excess.

   2026, Emily Barth, “Woolly Cocoon Bags”, in Handwoven, volume XLVII, number 1, page 37

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 any object.

   And the Lord shall make thee the head, and not the taile, […]

   1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Deuteronomy 28:13

   1 more example

   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.

   1862, Ballou's Dollar Monthly Magazine, volume 16, page 83

6. The rear structure of an aircraft, the empennage.
7. astronomyThe 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. mathematicsThe part of a distribution most distant from the mode.

   long tail

10. One who surreptitiously follows another.
11. ball gamesThe lower order of batsmen in the batting order, usually specialist bowlers.
12. mediaThe lower loop of the letters in the Roman alphabet, as in g, q or y.

    Synonyms: descender

13. in pluralThe side of a coin not bearing the head; normally the side on which the monetary value of the coin is indicated; the reverse.
14. mathematicsAll the last terms of a sequence, from some term on.

    A sequence (a#95;n) is said to be frequently 0 if every tail of the sequence contains 0.

15. UScolloquialThe buttocks or backside.

    By Goddis sydes, syns I her thyder broughte, / She hath gote me more money with her tayle / Than hath some shyppe that into Bordews sayle.

    1499, John Skelton, The Bowge of Courte

    1 more example

    They were wont to wipe their tailes [translating cul] (this vaine superstition of words must be left unto women) with a sponge, and that's the reason why Spongia in Latine is counted an obscene word[…].

    1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 49, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book I, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC

16. slangThe penis of a person or animal.
17. slanguncountableSexual intercourse.

    I'm gonna get me some tail tonight.

    2 more examples

    “Innarested in a little tail t’night?” “Me?” I said. Which was a very dumb answer, but it’s quite embarrassing when somebody comes right up and asks you a question like that.

    1951 July 16, J[erome] D[avid] Salinger, chapter 13, in The Catcher in the Rye, Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown and Company, →OCLC

    On the bosom of young Abigail Was written the price of her tail And on her behind For the use of the blind Was the same information in Braille

    1971, “Abigail”, in Live at the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, performed by The Corries

    Synonyms: aphrodisia, carnal knowledge, coitus, coition, commerce, commixtion, congress, conjunction

18. kayakingThe stern; the back of the kayak.
19. A train or company of attendants; a retinue.

    Ah! if you Saxon Duinhé-wassal (English gentleman) saw but the chief with his tail on. […] that is, with all his usual followers

    1814, Walter Scott, Waverley: Or, 'Tis Sixty Years Since, page 238

20. anatomyThe distal tendon of a muscle.
21. biologyA 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. medicineA 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. nauticalA rope spliced to the strap of a block, by which it may be lashed to anything.
26. entertainmentThe part of a note which runs perpendicularly upward or downward from the head; the stem.
27. businessA tailing.
28. architectureThe bottom or lower portion of a member or part such as a slate or tile.
29. colloquialdatedA tailcoat.
30. businessSynonym of pigtail (“a short length of twisted electrical wire”).

    Synonyms: pigtail

31. chemistryThe final fraction of a distillation run, typically containing impurities and fusel oils.

    Synonyms: tailings

present singular third person tails · participle present tailing · participle past tailed · past tailed

1. architectureTo hold by the end; said of a timber when it rests upon a wall or other support; with in or into
2. nauticalTo swing with the stern in a certain direction; said of a vessel at anchor.

   This vessel tails downstream.

3. To follow or hang to, like a tail; to be attached closely to, as that which can not be evaded.

   Nevertheless his bond of two thousand pounds, wherewith he was tailed, continued uncancelled.

   1655, Thomas Fuller, The Church-history of Britain; […], London: […] Iohn Williams […], →OCLC, (please specify |book=I to XI)

4. transitiveTo follow and observe surreptitiously.

   Tail that car!

5. To pull or draw by the tail.

   The conqu'ring foe they soon afailid, First Trulla stav'd, and Cerdon tail'd

   1662 (indicated as 1663), [Samuel Butler], “[The First Part of Hudibras]”, in Hudibras. The First and Second Parts. […], London: […] John Martyn and Henry Herringman, […], published 1678; republished in A[lfred] R[ayney] Waller, editor, Hudibras: Written in the Time of the Late Wars, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: University Press, 1905, →OCLC

1. lawLimited; abridged; reduced; curtailed.

   estate tail

1. lawLimitation of inheritance to certain heirs.

   in tail

   subject to such a limitation

   1 more example

   tail male

   limitation to male heirs

1. ChineseastronomyA Chinese constellation coinciding with the tail of Scorpius, one of the 28 lunar mansions and the tail of Azure Dragon.

   For quotations using this term, see Citations:Tail.