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Tail end   /teɪl ɛnd/   Listen
noun
Tail  n.  
1.
(Zool.) The terminal, and usually flexible, posterior appendage of an animal. Note: The tail of mammals and reptiles contains a series of movable vertebrae, and is covered with flesh and hairs or scales like those of other parts of the body. The tail of existing birds consists of several more or less consolidated vertebrae which supports a fanlike group of quills to which the term tail is more particularly applied. The tail of fishes consists of the tapering hind portion of the body ending in a caudal fin. The term tail is sometimes applied to the entire abdomen of a crustacean or insect, and sometimes to the terminal piece or pygidium alone.
2.
Any long, flexible terminal appendage; whatever resembles, in shape or position, the tail of an animal, as a catkin. "Doretus writes a great praise of the distilled waters of those tails that hang on willow trees."
3.
Hence, the back, last, lower, or inferior part of anything, as opposed to the head, or the superior part. "The Lord will make thee the head, and not the tail."
4.
A train or company of attendants; a retinue. ""Ah," said he, "if you saw but the chief with his tail on.""
5.
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.
6.
(Anat.) The distal tendon of a muscle.
7.
(Bot.) A downy or feathery appendage to certain achenes. It is formed of the permanent elongated style.
8.
(Surg.)
(a)
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.
(b)
One of the strips at the end of a bandage formed by splitting the bandage one or more times.
9.
(Naut.) A rope spliced to the strap of a block, by which it may be lashed to anything.
10.
(Mus.) The part of a note which runs perpendicularly upward or downward from the head; the stem.
11.
pl. Same as Tailing, 4.
12.
(Arch.) The bottom or lower portion of a member or part, as a slate or tile.
13.
pl. (Mining) See Tailing, n., 5.
14.
(Astronomy) The long visible stream of gases, ions, or dust particles extending from the head of a comet in the direction opposite to the sun.
15.
pl. (Rope Making) In some forms of rope-laying machine, pieces of rope attached to the iron bar passing through the grooven wooden top containing the strands, for wrapping around the rope to be laid.
16.
pl. A tailed coat; a tail coat. (Colloq. or Dial.)
17.
(Aeronautics) In airplanes, an airfoil or group of airfoils used at the rear to confer stability.
18.
The buttocks. (slang or vulgar)
19.
Sexual intercourse, or a woman used for sexual intercourse; as, to get some tail; to find a piece of tail. See also tailing 3. (slang and vulgar)
Tail beam. (Arch.) Same as Tailpiece.
Tail coverts (Zool.), the feathers which cover the bases of the tail quills. They are sometimes much longer than the quills, and form elegant plumes. Those above the quills are called the upper tail coverts, and those below, the under tail coverts.
Tail end, the latter end; the termination; as, the tail end of a contest. (Colloq.)
Tail joist. (Arch.) Same as Tailpiece.
Tail of a comet (Astron.), a luminous train extending from the nucleus or body, often to a great distance, and usually in a direction opposite to the sun.
Tail of a gale (Naut.), the latter part of it, when the wind has greatly abated.
Tail of a lock (on a canal), the lower end, or entrance into the lower pond.
Tail of the trenches (Fort.), the post where the besiegers begin to break ground, and cover themselves from the fire of the place, in advancing the lines of approach.
Tail spindle, the spindle of the tailstock of a turning lathe; called also dead spindle.
To turn tail, to run away; to flee. "Would she turn tail to the heron, and fly quite out another way; but all was to return in a higher pitch."





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Tail end" Quotes from Famous Books



... from him the other day, out of which the most quick-witted letter-bandit would have been at a loss to decipher what he was driving at. If you occasionally come across some unintelligible notices at the tail end of the Observer, they will thus seem to you more puzzling still, and to the blockhead who breaks open this letter they will remain unintelligible, even if I tell you that they are a part of my correspondence. Only give me frequent tidings, my beloved ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... as humble as the leaning tower at Pisa. It is the most you could say of it. Indeed, it was such a thundering poor success that it raised wondering scowls all along the line, and a gorgeous flunkey at the tail end of it raised his whip; but I jumped in time and was under it when it fell; and under cover of the volley of coarse laughter which followed, I spoke up sharply and warned the king to take no notice. He mastered himself for the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... degree. The church itself was but a barn, homely-shaped, bare, and in winter cold as out-of-doors. At this season men wrapped their feet in bags, and women stuffed their muffs with hot stones. Sleepers were rudely awakened by the tithing-man's baton thwacking their heads; or, if females, by its fox-tail end brushing their cheeks. Fast-days were common. Prayer opened every public meeting, secular as well as religious. The doctrine of special providences was pressed to a ridiculous extreme. The devil was believed in no less firmly than God, and indefinitely great power ...
— History of the United States, Vol. I (of VI) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... didn't get a brainstorm that marooned two old friends in this tail end of nowhere. And we can't make him swallow it when we say that it's okay, we don't ...
— Project Mastodon • Clifford Donald Simak
... lantern, which showed the rolling wreaths of the mist, just reached the water, and in the reflection he saw two greenish points. After long looking, he made out that these were the eyes of a crocodile, whose body was half in and half out of the water, the tail end of him being anchored on the little island. At eleven o'clock he roused Compton by dragging ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... restriction as to food, which is cooked in the same way and by the same persons as before. On finding the snake, he secures it alive, removes the croton leaf from the hole in his nose, and inserts into it the tail end of the living snake; then, holding the head of the snake in one of his hands, and the tail in the other, he draws the snake slowly through the hole, until its head is close to the hole. He then lets the head drop from his hand, and with a quick ...
— The Mafulu - Mountain People of British New Guinea • Robert W. Williamson
... Oak," with its more than ten millions of assets at one time, its subsequent compromise with its policy-holders at sixty-five cents on the dollar, and its now possible passage into the hands of a receiver,—that functionary at the tail end of a life-insurance company that has so often been the "bourne" whence few dollars have ever returned to the pockets of the unfortunate policy-holder,—is too well known to require rehearsing here. Yet the assertion is brazenly made that level-premium ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, January 1886 - Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 1, January, 1886 • Various
... driving around its end some thin wedges of wood or by allowing it to protrude and running a small peg through the protruding end, as shown by F, G (Fig. 197, lower diagram). The thin, springy end of your latch is now forced down by a peg or nail in the door at H (Fig. 197) and the tail end of it forced up by a peg or nail at K. When this is done properly it will give considerable spring to the latch and impart a decided tendency to force the latch into the wooden catch, a tendency which can only be overcome by lifting ...
— Shelters, Shacks and Shanties • D.C. Beard
... every department there is a series of authorities, starting with "other ranks" at the bottom, proceeding in an ascending scale of dignity and worth, and disappearing through a cloud of Generals into an infinite of which no man knoweth the nature. Thus, with Ross's business (to take the tail end of it) the letter which the Corporal writes the Lieutenant signs on behalf of the Major. It is when the Major wants to do something more active that trouble arises. Let us take an incidental matter of administrative detail for example, setting ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, June 27, 1917 • Various


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