tail
/ˈteɪ̯l/ noun, verb, adjective, proper noun
- noun (anatomy) The caudal appendage of an animal that is attached to their posterior and near the anus or cloaca. “Most primates have a tail and fangs.”
- noun 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.
- noun The back, last, lower, or inferior part of anything.
- noun The feathers attached to the pygostyle of a bird.
- noun The tail-end of any object.
- noun The rear structure of an aircraft, the empennage.
- noun (astronomy) The visible stream of dust and gases blown from a comet by the solar wind.
- noun The latter part of a time period or event, or (collectively) persons or objects represented in this part.
- verb (architecture) To hold by the end; said of a timber when it rests upon a wall or other support; with in or into
- verb (nautical) To swing with the stern in a certain direction; said of a vessel at anchor. “This vessel tails downstream.”
- verb To follow or hang to, like a tail; to be attached closely to, as that which can not be evaded.
- verb (transitive) To follow and observe surreptitiously. “Tail that car!”
- verb To pull or draw by the tail.
- adjective (law) Limited; abridged; reduced; curtailed.
- noun (law) Limitation of inheritance to certain heirs. “tail male”
- proper noun (Chinese astronomy) A Chinese constellation coinciding with the tail of Scorpius, one of the 28 lunar mansions and the tail of Azure Dragon.
Synonyms
descender aphrodisia carnal knowledge coitus coition commerce commixtion congress conjunction connection consummation conversation copulation coupling intercourse intimacy intimate relations intromission joining lovemaking fag end tail end buttocks nates arse butt backside bum buns can
Antonyms
Etymology
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”).
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.
From Anglo-Norman, probably from a shortened form of entail.
From tail, a semantic loan from Chinese 尾.
Webster’s 1913
- noun Limitation; abridgment. Burrill. Estate in tail, a limited, abridged, or reduced fee; an estate limited to certain heirs, and from which the other heirs are precluded; --called also estate tail.
- adjective Limited; abridged; reduced; curtailed; as, estate tail.
- noun The terminal, and usually flexible, posterior appendage of an animal.
- noun Any long, flexible terminal appendage; whatever resembles, in shape or position, the tail of an animal, as a catkin.
Etymology [F. taille a cutting. See Entail, Tally.]
Etymology [AS. tægel, tægl; akin to G. zagel, Icel. tagl, Sw. tagel, Goth. tagl hair. *59.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “tail”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details