tail
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: enpr: tāl
ipa: /teɪl/
homophone: tale
homophone: tael
rhymes: -eɪl
Forms: form: tails
Etymology: From Middle English tail, tayl, teil, from Old English 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 Scots tail (“tail”), Saterland Frisian Tail (“tail, end”), West Frisian teil (“tail”), Dutch teil (“tail, haulm, blade”), Low German Tagel (“twisted scourge, whip of thongs and ropes; end of a rope”), German Zagel (“tail”), dialectal Danish tavl (“hair of the tail”), Swedish tagel (“hair of the tail, horsehair”), Norwegian tagl (“tail”), Icelandic tagl (“tail, horsetail, ponytail”), Gothic 𐍄𐌰𐌲𐌻 (tagl, “hair”). In some senses, apparently by a generalization of the usual opposition between head and tail.
Senses: examples: text: Most primates have a tail and fangs.
topics: anatomy
medicine
sciences
glosses: The caudal appendage of an animal that is attached to its posterior and near the anus.
examples: text: Duretus writes a great praise of the Distill'd waters of those tails that hang on Willow Trees.
ref: 1672, Gideon Harvey, Morbus Anglicus: or the Anatomy of Consumptions, page 112:
glosses: An object or part of an object resembling a tail in shape, such as the thongs on a cat-o'-nine-tails.
glosses: The back, last, lower, or inferior part of anything.
glosses: The feathers attached to the pygostyle of a bird.
examples: text: And the Lord shall make thee the head, and not the taile, […]
ref: 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Deuteronomy 28:13:
text: 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.
ref: 1862, Ballou's Dollar Monthly Magazine, volume 16, page 83:
glosses: The tail-end of any object.
glosses: The rear structure of an aircraft, the empennage.
topics: astronomy
natural-sciences
glosses: The visible stream of dust and gases blown from a comet by the solar wind.
glosses: The latter part of a time period or event, or (collectively) persons or objects represented in this part.
topics: mathematics
sciences
statistics
glosses: The part of a distribution most distant from the mode; as, a long tail.
glosses: One who surreptitiously follows another.
topics: ball-games
cricket
games
hobbies
lifestyle
sports
glosses: The lower order of batsmen in the batting order, usually specialist bowlers.
topics: media
publishing
typography
synonyms: descender
glosses: The lower loop of the letters in the Roman alphabet, as in g, q or y.
glosses: The side of a coin not bearing the head; normally the side on which the monetary value of the coin is indicated; the reverse.
examples: text: A sequence (a#95;n) is said to be frequently 0 if every tail of the sequence contains 0.
topics: mathematics
sciences
glosses: All the last terms of a sequence, from some term on.
examples: text: 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.
ref: 1499, John Skelton, The Bowge of Courte:
text: 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[…].
ref: 1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 49, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book I, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC:
glosses: The buttocks or backside.
glosses: The penis of a person or animal.
examples: text: I'm gonna get me some tail tonight.
text: “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.
ref: 1951 July 16, J[erome] D[avid] Salinger, chapter 13, in The Catcher in the Rye, Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown and Company, →OCLC:
text: 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
ref: 1971, “Abigail”, in Live at the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, performed by The Corries:
synonyms: word: aphrodisia
word: carnal knowledge
word: coitus
word: coition
word: commerce
word: commixtion
word: congress
word: conjunction
word: connection
word: consummation
word: conversation
word: copulation
word: coupling
word: intercourse
word: intimacy
word: intimate relations
word: intromission
word: joining
word: lovemaking
word: lustmaking
word: marital embrace
word: mating
word: mounting
raw_tags: for animals
word: pareunia
word: penetration
word: relations
word: sex
word: sexual congress
word: sexual intercourse
word: sexual relation
word: sexual union
word: swiving
word: union
word: the beast with two backs
word: the birds and the bees
word: boom-boom
word: chesterfield rugby
word: horizontal dancing
word: horizontal hula
word: horizontal jogging
word: horizontal mambo
word: horizontal refreshments
word: how's your father
word: love
word: Netflix and chill
word: physical love
word: roll in the hay
word: Ugandan affairs
word: Ugandan discussions
word: action
word: ass
word: bang
word: barney-mugging
word: beef injection
word: bonking
word: cuntfuck
word: fucking
word: frig
word: fucky-fucky
word: hot beef injection
word: hump
word: humpa humpa
word: jig-jig
word: jiggy-jiggy
word: lay
word: legover
word: meat injection
word: nookie
word: old hat
word: pipe
word: plow
word: plough
word: poon
word: poontang
word: punani
word: pussy
word: ride
word: root
word: rumpo
word: rumpy-pumpy
word: seeing-to
word: sexy time
word: sexy times
word: screw
word: screwing
word: shag
word: skin
word: snu snu
word: tang
word: trim
word: hanky-panky
word: funny business
word: making whoopee
word: jiggery-pokery
word: monkey business
word: fooling about
word: fooling around
word: playing around
glosses: Sexual intercourse.
qualifier: kayaking
glosses: The stern; the back of the kayak.
examples: text: Ah! if you Saxon Duinhé-wassal (English gentleman) saw but the chief with his tail on. […] that is, with all his usual followers
ref: 1814, Walter Scott, Waverley: Or, 'Tis Sixty Years Since, page 238:
glosses: A train or company of attendants; a retinue.
topics: anatomy
medicine
sciences
glosses: The distal tendon of a muscle.
topics: biology
entomology
natural-sciences
glosses: A filamentous projection on the tornal section of each hind wing of certain butterflies.
glosses: A downy or feathery appendage of certain achens, formed of the permanent elongated style.
topics: medicine
sciences
surgery
glosses: 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.
glosses: One of the strips at the end of a bandage formed by splitting the bandage one or more times.
topics: nautical
transport
glosses: A rope spliced to the strap of a block, by which it may be lashed to anything.
topics: entertainment
lifestyle
music
glosses: The part of a note which runs perpendicularly upward or downward from the head; the stem.
topics: business
mining
glosses: A tailing.
topics: architecture
glosses: The bottom or lower portion of a member or part such as a slate or tile.
glosses: A tailcoat.
topics: business
electrical
electrical-engineering
electricity
electromagnetism
energy
engineering
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
physics
glosses: Synonym of pigtail (“a short length of twisted electrical wire”).
synonyms: word: pigtail
extra: a short length of twisted electrical wire
topics: chemistry
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
synonyms: tailings
coordinate_terms: head
heart
glosses: The final fraction of a distillation run, typically containing impurities and fusel oils.
Hyponyms: coattail
cocktail
magnetotail
pigtail
rattail
shirttail
Derived terms: antitail
astrotail
at the tail
bangtail
bang tail
bang-tail
barbtail
beaver tail
beavertail
betail
bigtail
blue rat's tail
bluetail
boattail
bobtail
bonytail
box tail
bristletail
bristle-tail
broadtail
broken tail
broomtail
brown-tail moth
bucktail
burro's tail
Cameroon scaly-tail
cat-o'-nine-tails
catstail
cattail
cat-tail sedge
chase one's own tail
chase tail
cold tail
comet tail
cottontail
cowtail
cross-tail
culvertail
dead tail
de-tail
dogstail
dog's-tail grass
dovetail
drabble-tail
draggle-tail
dragon's tail
ducktail
emutail
e-tail
fantail
fat-tail
fat tail
feathertail
fee tail
filetail
firetail
fish-tail
fishtail
fish tail
flagtail
flangetail
flat-tail sea snake
flickertail
flufftail
forcepstail
forktail
foxtail
freetail
frozen tail
fuzztail
gilt-tail
goldentail
goldtail
grow a tail
hairtail
hangtail
hardtail
hare's-tail
haul tail
have a tiger by the tail
have one's tail up
have the tiger by the tail
have the world by the tail on a downhill pull
heads or tails
head to tail
heavy tail
heliotail
high-tail
hightail
high-tail it
hooktail
horntail
horse tail
horsetail
in two shakes of a cow's tail
in two shakes of a dog's tail
in two shakes of a duck's tail
in two shakes of a lamb's tail
jollytail
kick some tail
kick tail
kicktail
lashtail
lay salt on someone's tail
lemur-tail seahorse
like a dog with two tails
limber tail
limber tail syndrome
lion's tail
lizard's tail
lizard tail
lobster-tail pot
longtail
long-tail boat
long-tail Covid
looptail
lyretail
mackerel sky and mare's-tails make lofty ships carry low sails
mackerel sky and mare's-tails make tall ships carry low sails
make head nor tail of
make head or tail of
make neither head nor tail of
mare's-tail
mare's tail
mares' tails
metaltail
mill tail
monkey tail
monkey tail tree
mousetail
nail-tail wallaby
needletail
nose to tail
on one's tail
on someone's tail
oxtail
peacock's tail
pentail
petaltail
petticoat tail
piece of tail
pigtail
pincertail
pintail
pin the tail on the donkey
ploughtail
plowtail
plume tail
pony tail
ponytail
pseudotail
pull the devil by the tail
put salt on someone's tail
quaketail
quilltail
raccoon tail
racket-tail
racquet-tail
rat-tail
rat-tail file
rat-tail radish
rat-tail splice
redtail
red tail disease
ribbontail
ringtail
ring-tailed
rooster-tail
roostertail
roughtail
rubytail
scaletail
scissorstail
scissortail
sharptail
shavetail
sheartail
sheath-tail bat
shieldtail
shirt-tail
shorttail
silktail
silvertail
singletail
skunk tail
snake tail
Softail
softtail
spadetail
spatuletail
spiketail
spindletail
spinetail
split-tail
spread tail
sprigtail
springtail
squaretail
squirreltail
stifftail
sting in the tail
streamertail
stripetail
stubtail
swallowtail
swallow-tail
swimmer's tail
swingletail
swingtail
swordtail
tagtail
tailable
tailache
tail away
tailback
tailband
tail-bay
tail-beam
tailbeat
tail between one's legs
tailblock
tail block
tailboard
tail bone
tailbone
tail boom
tailbud
tail-buzzer
tail call
tail club
tailcoat
tail cone
tailcord
tailcuff
tailcup
tail down
taildragger
tail dragger
tail end
tailend
tail-end
tail-ender
tailer
taileron
tail event
tailfan
tailfeather
tailfin
tail flap
tailflip
tailflipping
Tailgate
tailgate
tail grape
tailgroup
tail gunner
tail gut
tail-gut
tailgut
tailhead
tailhole
tailhook
tail in
tailism
taillamp
tail lamp
tailless
tail lift
taillight
taillike
tail merging
tailmost
tail-napkin
tailnumber
tail number
tail off
tail-off
tail packing
tail pad
tailpiece
tailpin
tailpipe
tailplane
tail plug
tail-pod radish
tail-pole
tail pole
tail question
tailrace
tail recursion
tail recursive
tail rhyme
tailride
tail risk
tail rotor
tail-shedding
tailshield
tailsitter
tailskid
tail-skid
tail slate
tailslide
tail slide
tailspin
tailspot
tail stall
tailstand
tailstock
tailstrike
tailswing
tail swing
tail valve
tail vein
tail-wagger
tailward
tailwards
tailwater
tailwheel
tailwhip
tailwind
tail wind
tailwise
tapertail
tapetail
teeter-tail
teeth-to-tail ratio
the cow knows not the worth of its tail till it loses it
thistletail
thorntail
threadtail
tickle the dragon's tail
tiger tail
tigertail
tiger tail seahorse
top and tail
top to tail
trendle-tail
trindle-tail
triple-tail
tripletail
trundletail
trust someone as far as one could fling a bull by the tail
T-tail
turkey tail
turntail
twintail
undertail
veiltail
wagtail
wag-tail dance
wax someone's tail
wedgetail
whale's tail
whale tail
whiptail
whitetail
white-tailed hawk
wholetail
wiretail
with one's tail up
work one's tail off
work someone's tail off
wrentail
wrytail
yellowtail
Related terms: cat-o'-nine-tails
chase one's tail
have the world by the tail
Otter Tail County
tail covert
tail feather
tail fin
tail light
tail wagging the dog
turn tail
caudal