Definition of "tail" []

• The posterior part of an animal, especially when elongated and extending beyond the trunk or main part of the body. (noun)
• The bottom, rear, or hindmost part: the tail of a shirt. (noun)
• The rear end of a wagon or other vehicle. (noun)
• The rear portion of the fuselage of an aircraft. (noun)
• An assembly of stabilizing planes and control surfaces in this rear portion. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "The female Lophophorus has been living on nothing for at least a week; its voice is various, sometimes not unlike that of a large hawk, at others a cackle, or low chuckle; occasionally it runs forward, erecting its crest, and spreading out its tail like a fan, the _tail being_"
• "The Indian gave him to understand that he did trade horses, but as the mule had little or no tail, and the pony a long one, "_he wanted the sugar, tobacco, and flour to make up for the tail_!""
• "These latter, of the celebrated Shanghae breed, were the finest specimens I have seen for a long time; and the most striking peculiarity about them was the preponderance of fat to their caudal extremities, the tail of each being of an entirely different formation from that of the European breed; and I can compare it to nothing better than an immense woolly mop, "in the place where the _tail_ ought to grow.""