Tail

Tail - (Webster's 1828 Dictionary)

TAIL, n.

1. The part of an animal which terminates its body behind. In many quadrupeds, the tail is a shoot or projection covered with hair. In fowls, the tail consists of feathers, or is covered with them, which serve to assist in the direction of their flight. In fishes the tail is formed usually by a gradual sloping of the body, ending in a fin. The tail of a fish may assist the animal in steering, but its principal use is to propel the fish forward. It is the instrument of swimming.

2. The lower part,noting inferiority.

The Lord will make thee the head, and not the tail. Deu 28.

3. Any thing hanging long; a catkin.

4. The hinder part of any thing.

5. In anatomy, that tendon of a muscle which is fixed to the movable part.

6. In botany, the tail of a seed, is a downy or feathery appendage to certain seeds, formed of the permanent elongated style.

7. Horse's tail, among the Tartars and Chinese, is an ensign or flag; among the Turks, a standard borne before the grand visier, bashaws and the sangiacs. For this purpose, it is fitted to a half-pike with a gold button, and is called toug. There are bashaws of one, two and three tails.

8. In heraldry, the tail of a hart.

9. In music, the part of a note running upwards or downwards.

10. The extremity or last end; as the tail of a storm.

Tail of a comet, a luminous train which extends from the nucleus in a direction opposite to the sun.

To turn tail, is to run away; to flee.

Tail of a lock, on a canal, the lower end, or entrance into the lower pond.

Tail-piece, of a violin, is a piece of ebony attached to the end of the instrument, to which the strings are fastened.

TAIL, n. In law, an estate in tail is a limited fee; an estate limited to certain heirs, and from which the other heirs are precluded. Estates tail are general or special; general, where lands and tenements are given to one, and to the heirs of his body begotten; special, where the gift is restrained to certain heirs of the donee;s body, as to his heirs by a particular woman names. See Entail.]

TAIL, v.t. To pull by the tail.

tal ('alyah; zanabh; oura): The broad tail of the Syrian sheep, wrongly rendered "rump" (which see) in the King James Version, is mentioned as one of the portions of sacrifice which was burned on the altar as a sweet savor to God (Ex 29:22). The 2nd Hebrew word is used of the tails of serpents (Ex 4:4), of foxes, which Samson tied together in his cruel sport, in order to destroy the grainfields of the Philistines by means of attached firebrands (Jud 15:4, etc.). The following seems to be an allusion to this incident: "Fear not, neither let thy heart be faint, because of these two tails of smoking firebrands, for the fierce anger of Rezin and Syria, and of the son of Remaliah" (Isa 7:4).

Figurative: "Tail" = inferiority, as opposed to "head" = superiority, leadership. "Yahweh will make thee the head, and not the tail; and thou shalt be above only, and thou shalt not be beneath; if thou shalt hearken unto the commandments of Yahweh" (De 28:13; compare also 28:44).

In the New Testament we find oura used of the apocalyptic animals, scorpions, horses, and the dragon (Re 9:10,19; 12:4).

H. L. E. Luering