tail

1 /teIl/ noun

1 ANIMAL (C) the movable part at the back of an animal's body: The dog wagged its tail. | a fish's tail

2 AIRCRAFT (C) the back part of an aircraft

3 SHIRT (C) the bottom part of your shirt at the back, that you put inside your trousers;

4 BACK PART (countable usually singular) the back part of something, especially something that is moving away from you: We saw the tail of the procession disappearing round the corner.

5 tails

a) (U) the side of a coin that does not have the head of the president, queen etc on it: Which side do you want, heads or tails?

—opposite heads head 1 (36)

b) (plural) a man's formal jacket (1) with two long parts that hang down at the back

6 FOLLOW (C) informal someone who is employed to watch and follow someone, especially a criminal: put a tail on sb (=order someone to follow another person)

7 sit/be on sb's tail BrE informal to follow another car too closely; tailgate 2 AmE

8 turn tail to run away because you are too frightened to fight or attack

9 the tail end of a queue/meeting etc the very last part of a queue etc

10 with your tail between your legs embarrassed or unhappy because you have failed or been defeated

11 the tail is wagging the dog informal used to say that an unimportant thing is wrongly controlling a situation

—see also: nose to tail nose 1 (19), a sting in the tail sting 2 (4) 2 verb (T) informal to follow someone and watch what they do, where they go etc tail away phrasal verb (I) to become quieter, thinner etc and then disappear: The beach tailed away to nothing. tail back phrasal verb (I) especially BrE to form a tailback tail off phrasal verb (I) to become gradually smaller or weaker, sometimes stopping completely: Our profits tailed off towards the end of the year.