tail

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   The caudal appendage of an animal that is attached to their posterior and near the anus or cloaca.

   Most primates have a tail and fangs.

2. 2
   noun

   An object or part of an object resembling a tail in shape, such as the thongs on a cat-o'-nine-tails.

   Duretus writes a great praise of the Distill'd waters of those tails that hang on Willow Trees.

3. 3
   noun

   The tail-end of any object.

   And the Lord shall make thee the head, and not the taile, […]

4. 4
   noun

   The part of a distribution most distant from the mode.

   long tail

5. 5
   noun

   All the last terms of a sequence, from some term on.

   A sequence (a#95;n) is said to be frequently 0 if every tail of the sequence contains 0.

6. 6
   noun

   The buttocks or backside.

   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.

7. 7
   noun

   Sexual intercourse.

   I'm gonna get me some tail tonight.

8. 8
   noun

   A train or company of attendants; a retinue.

   Ah! if you Saxon Duinhé-wassal (English gentleman) saw but the chief with his tail on. […] that is, with all his usual followers

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”),…