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.