TAIL
Tail, n. Etym: [F. taille a cutting. See Entail, Tally.] (Law)
Defn: Limitation; abridgment. Burrill. Estate in tail, a limited, abridged, or reduced fee; an estate limited to certain heirs, and from which the other heirs are precluded; — called also estate tail. Blackstone.
TAIL
Tail, a. (Law)
Defn: Limited; abridged; reduced; curtailed; as, estate tail.
TAIL Tail, n. Etym: [AS. tægel, tægl; akin to G. zagel, Icel. tagl, Sw. tagel, Goth. tagl hair. *59.]
1. (Zoöl.)
Defn: The terminal, and usually flexible, posterior appendage of an animal.
Note: The tail of mammals and reptiles contains a series of movable vertebræ, 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 vertebræ 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. Harvey.
3. Hence, the back, last, lower, or inferior part of anything, — as opposed to the Ant: head, or the superior part. The Lord will make thee the head, and not the tail. Deut. xxviii. 13.