Meaning

• The caudal appendage of an animal that is attached to its posterior and near the anus.

  "Most primates have a tail and fangs."

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

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

• The feathers attached to the pygostyle of a bird.

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

• The rear structure of an aircraft, the empennage.

• The visible stream of dust and gases blown from a comet by the solar wind.

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

• The part of a distribution most distant from the mode; as, a long tail.

• One who surreptitiously follows another.

• The lower order of batsmen in the batting order, usually specialist bowlers.

• The lower loop of the letters in the Roman alphabet, as in g, q or y.

• (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.

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

• The buttocks or backside.

• The penis of a person or animal.

• Sexual intercourse.

  "I'm gonna get me some tail tonight."

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

• A train or company of attendants; a retinue.

• The distal tendon of a muscle.

• 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.

• 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.

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

• A rope spliced to the strap of a block, by which it may be lashed to anything.

• The part of a note which runs perpendicularly upward or downward from the head; the stem.

• A tailing.

• The bottom or lower portion of a member or part such as a slate or tile.

• A tailcoat.

Meaning

• To follow and observe surreptitiously.

  "Tail that car!"

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

• To swing with the stern in a certain direction; said of a vessel at anchor.

  "This vessel tails downstream."

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

• To pull or draw by the tail.