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Tail

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tail¹

  • /ˈteɪ̯l/ US, UK
  • [ˈtʰeɪ̯l] US, UK
  • /ˈteːl/
  • /ˈtæ̝ɪ̯l/ Australia
  • /ˈtæ̝ɪ̯u/

Sounds like tale, tael · Rhymes with -eɪl

Where it comes from

Etymology tree

Proto-Germanic *taglą

Proto-West Germanic *tagl

Old English tæġl

Middle English tayl

English tail

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.

noun tails

  1. 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.
  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.
  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, […]
  6. The rear structure of an aircraft, the empennage.
  7. The 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. The part of a distribution most distant from the mode. long tail
  10. One who surreptitiously follows another.
  11. The lower order of batsmen in the batting order, usually specialist bowlers.
  12. The lower loop of the letters in the Roman alphabet, as in g, q or y.
  13. in plural The side of a coin not bearing the head; normally the side on which the monetary value of the coin is indicated; the reverse.
  14. All 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. US, colloquial The 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.
  16. slang The penis of a person or animal.
  17. slang, uncountable Sexual intercourse. I'm gonna get me some tail tonight.
  18. The 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
  20. The distal tendon of a muscle.
  21. A 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. A 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. A rope spliced to the strap of a block, by which it may be lashed to anything.
  26. The part of a note which runs perpendicularly upward or downward from the head; the stem.
  27. A tailing.
  28. The bottom or lower portion of a member or part such as a slate or tile.
  29. colloquial, dated A tailcoat.
  30. Synonym of pigtail (“a short length of twisted electrical wire”).
  31. The final fraction of a distillation run, typically containing impurities and fusel oils.

verb tails · tailing · tailed

  1. To hold by the end; said of a timber when it rests upon a wall or other support; with in or into
  2. To 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.
  4. transitive To 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

tail²

  • /ˈteɪ̯l/ US, UK
  • [ˈtʰeɪ̯l] US, UK
  • /ˈteːl/
  • /ˈtæ̝ɪ̯l/ Australia
  • /ˈtæ̝ɪ̯u/

Sounds like tale, tael · Rhymes with -eɪl

Where it comes from

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

adjective

  1. Limited; abridged; reduced; curtailed. estate tail

noun

  1. Limitation of inheritance to certain heirs. tail male

Tail³

Where it comes from

From tail, a semantic loan from Chinese 尾.

proper noun

  1. Chinese A 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.

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