Word Meaning

tail definition and meaning

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.

Crossword clues for tail

- Appendage
- Caudal appendage
- End
- End part
- Follow (along)
- Follow someone secretly
- Hindmost part
- To follow (coll)
- Told tale of shadow
- Wagging appendage