Definition of "tail"

(anatomy) The caudal appendage of an animal that is attached to its posterior and near the anus.  examples

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

The back, last, lower, or inferior part of anything.  examples

The feathers attached to the pygostyle of a bird.  examples

The tail-end of an object, e.g. the rear of an aircraft's fuselage, containing the tailfin.  quotations  examples

The rear structure of an aircraft, the empennage.  examples

(astronomy) The visible stream of dust and gases blown from a comet by the solar wind.  examples

The latter part of a time period or event, or (collectively) persons or objects represented in this part.  examples

(statistics) The part of a distribution most distant from the mode; as, a long tail.  examples

One who surreptitiously follows another.  examples

(cricket) The lower order of batsmen in the batting order, usually specialist bowlers.  examples

(typography) The lower loop of the letters in the Roman alphabet, as in g, q or y.  examples

(chiefly in the plural) 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

(mathematics) All the last terms of a sequence, from some term on.  examples

(now colloquial, chiefly US) The buttocks or backside.  quotations  examples

(slang) The penis of a person or animal.

(slang, uncountable) Sexual intercourse.

(kayaking) The stern; the back of the kayak.  examples

A train or company of attendants; a retinue.  quotations  examples

(anatomy) The distal tendon of a muscle.  examples

(entomology) A filamentous projection on the tornal section of each hind wing of certain butterflies.

A downy or feathery appendage of certain achens, formed of the permanent elongated style.  examples

(surgery) 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.  examples

One of the strips at the end of a bandage formed by splitting the bandage one or more times.  examples

(nautical) A rope spliced to the strap of a block, by which it may be lashed to anything.  examples

(music) The part of a note which runs perpendicularly upward or downward from the head; the stem.  examples

(mining) A tailing.  examples

(architecture) The bottom or lower portion of a member or part such as a slate or tile.  examples

(colloquial, dated) A tailcoat.  examples

(electrical engineering) Synonym of pigtail (“a short length of twisted electrical wire”)  examples

(transitive) To follow and observe surreptitiously.  examples

(architecture) To hold by the end; said of a timber when it rests upon a wall or other support; with in or into  examples

(nautical) To swing with the stern in a certain direction; said of a vessel at anchor.  examples

To follow or hang to, like a tail; to be attached closely to, as that which can not be evaded.  quotations  examples

To pull or draw by the tail.  quotations  examples

(law) Limited; abridged; reduced; curtailed.  examples

(law) Limitation of inheritance to certain heirs.  examples