tail

n. countable

B1 Intermediate Oxford US //ˈteɪɫ// UK //tˈeɪl// tail

Archaic General-service Informal Slang

n. the part of an animal's body that sticks out from its back end. It can also mean the back part of something, like an airplane or a line of people.

n. the posterior appendage of an animal's body, extending from the trunk. By extension, it refers to the rearmost part of any object or the end of a sequence.

SIMPLE

The dog wags its tail when it is happy.

CONTEXTUAL

We stood at the tail of the queue, waiting for the bus to arrive.

COMPLEX

The comet's brilliant tail, a stream of dust and gas pushed by solar wind, stretched across the night sky for millions of kilometers.

Synonyms

Antonyms

head

Etymology 1

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.

Etymology 2

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

Usage

Commonly extended metaphorically to mean the rearmost part of an object ('the tail of the plane') or the end of a sequence ('the tail of the queue').

Idioms12 entries