tail
IPA: tˈeɪɫ
noun
- (anatomy) The caudal appendage of an animal that is attached to its posterior and near the anus.
- An object or part of an object resembling a tail in shape, such as the thongs on a cat-o'-nine-tails.
- The back, last, lower, or inferior part of anything.
- The feathers attached to the pygostyle of a bird.
- The tail-end of an object, e.g. the rear of an aircraft's fuselage, containing the tailfin.
- The rear structure of an aircraft, the empennage.
- (astronomy) The visible stream of dust and gases blown from a comet by the solar wind.
- The latter part of a time period or event, or (collectively) persons or objects represented in this part.
- (statistics) The part of a distribution most distant from the mode; as, a long tail.
- One who surreptitiously follows another.
- (cricket) The lower order of batsmen in the batting order, usually specialist bowlers.
- (typography) The lower loop of the letters in the Roman alphabet, as in g, q or y.
- (chiefly in the 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.
- (mathematics) All the last terms of a sequence, from some term on.
- (now colloquial, chiefly US) The buttocks or backside.
- (slang) The penis of a person or animal.
- (slang, uncountable) Sexual intercourse.
- (kayaking) The stern; the back of the kayak.
- A train or company of attendants; a retinue.
- (anatomy) The distal tendon of a muscle.
- (entomology) A filamentous projection on the tornal section of each hind wing of certain butterflies.
- A downy or feathery appendage of certain achens, formed of the permanent elongated style.
- (surgery) 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.
- One of the strips at the end of a bandage formed by splitting the bandage one or more times.
- (nautical) A rope spliced to the strap of a block, by which it may be lashed to anything.
- (music) The part of a note which runs perpendicularly upward or downward from the head; the stem.
- (mining) A tailing.
- (architecture) The bottom or lower portion of a member or part such as a slate or tile.
- (colloquial, dated) A tailcoat.
- (electrical engineering) Synonym of pigtail (“a short length of twisted electrical wire”)
- (law) Limitation of inheritance to certain heirs.
- (Chinese astronomy) A Chinese constellation coinciding with the tail of Scorpius, one of the 28 lunar mansions and the tail of Azure Dragon.
verb
- (transitive) To follow and observe surreptitiously.
- (architecture) To hold by the end; said of a timber when it rests upon a wall or other support; with in or into
- (nautical) To swing with the stern in a certain direction; said of a vessel at anchor.
- To follow or hang to, like a tail; to be attached closely to, as that which can not be evaded.
- To pull or draw by the tail.
adjective
- (law) Limited; abridged; reduced; curtailed.
Examples of "tail" in Sentences
- The tail is not prehensile.
- It's the dog that wags the tail.
- The neck and the tail are thick.
- They become indistinct on the tail.
- In scorpions, the metasoma is the tail.
- The tail is covered by small prickles behind the spine.
- * The next step calls for widening the hide the tail is attached to.
- Behind the wings the fuselage tapered and became slender at the tail.
- The tail is short, and prehensile, tapering abruptly behind the vent.
- The male long tailed sylph carries characteristic elongated tail feathers.
- Its tail is short for a felines, taking less than half the length of the body.
- Our bodies twine, and the big black dog pushes his great head between; his tail is a metronome, 3/4 time.
- But the tail is a sort of long extension of the stresses, so that when it goes, the whole thing goes - with a sort of "phack!" sound.
- The Indian gave him to understand that he did trade horses, but as the mule had little or no tail, and the pony a long one, "_he wanted the sugar, tobacco, and flour to make up for the tail_!"
- The scientist explains how lobsters use their antennae to communicate during mass migrations, how what we call the "tail" is actually the entire torso of the lobster and how claws have different purposes—one is a "pincer," the other a "crusher."
- _Dom Gianni, at the instance of his gossip Pietro, performeth a conjuration for the purpose of causing the latter's wife to become a mare; but, whenas he cometh to put on the tail, Pietro marreth the whole conjuration, saying that he will not have a tail_
- The female Lophophorus has been living on nothing for at least a week; its voice is various, sometimes not unlike that of a large hawk, at others a cackle, or low chuckle; occasionally it runs forward, erecting its crest, and spreading out its tail like a fan, the _tail being_
- These latter, of the celebrated Shanghae breed, were the finest specimens I have seen for a long time; and the most striking peculiarity about them was the preponderance of fat to their caudal extremities, the tail of each being of an entirely different formation from that of the European breed; and I can compare it to nothing better than an immense woolly mop, "in the place where the _tail_ ought to grow."