Definition of Tail

  • (n.) Limitation; abridgment.
  • (a.) Limited; abridged; reduced; curtailed; as, estate tail.
  • (n.) The terminal, and usually flexible, posterior appendage of an animal.
  • (n.) Any long, flexible terminal appendage; whatever resembles, in shape or position, the tail of an animal, as a catkin.
  • (n.) Hence, the back, last, lower, or inferior part of anything, -- as opposed to the head, or the superior part.
  • (n.) A train or company of attendants; a retinue.
  • (n.) The side of a coin opposite to that which bears the head, effigy, or date; the reverse; -- rarely used except in the expression \"heads or tails,\" employed when a coin is thrown up for the purpose of deciding some point by its fall.
  • (n.) The distal tendon of a muscle.
  • (n.) A downy or feathery appendage to certain achenes. It is formed of the permanent elongated style.
  • (n.) 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.
  • (n.) One of the strips at the end of a bandage formed by splitting the bandage one or more times.
  • (n.) A rope spliced to the strap of a block, by which it may be lashed to anything.
  • (n.) The part of a note which runs perpendicularly upward or downward from the head; the stem.
  • (n.) Same as Tailing, 4.
  • (n.) The bottom or lower portion of a member or part, as a slate or tile.
  • (n.) See Tailing, n., 5.
  • (v. t.) To follow or hang to, like a tail; to be attached closely to, as that which can not be evaded.
  • (v. t.) To pull or draw by the tail.
  • (v. i.) To hold by the end; -- said of a timber when it rests upon a wall or other support; -- with in or into.
  • (v. i.) To swing with the stern in a certain direction; -- said of a vessel at anchor; as, this vessel tails down stream.

Antonyms of Tail


Homophones of Tail