"tail end" meaning in English

See tail end in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: tail ends [plural]
Etymology: From Middle English taylende; equivalent to tail + end. Etymology templates: {{inh|en|enm|taylende}} Middle English taylende, {{com|en|tail|end}} tail + end Head templates: {{en-noun}} tail end (plural tail ends)
  1. The hindmost part of anything (a person, animal, or object), the rear end; the butt, buttocks; hindquarters, rump. Synonyms: fag-end, rear end, tag end, tail-end, tailend Derived forms: Tail End Charlie, tailender
    Sense id: en-tail_end-en-noun-tZTIXcjg
  2. (figurative) The last part of a period of time, event, or situation; the concluding or final part. Tags: figuratively
    Sense id: en-tail_end-en-noun-qm7UvLJB Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 28 72

Inflected forms

Alternative forms

Download JSON data for tail end meaning in English (2.3kB)

{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "enm",
        "3": "taylende"
      },
      "expansion": "Middle English taylende",
      "name": "inh"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "tail",
        "3": "end"
      },
      "expansion": "tail + end",
      "name": "com"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From Middle English taylende; equivalent to tail + end.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "tail ends",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "tail end (plural tail ends)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "derived": [
        {
          "_dis1": "100 0",
          "word": "Tail End Charlie"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "100 0",
          "word": "tailender"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "The hindmost part of anything (a person, animal, or object), the rear end; the butt, buttocks; hindquarters, rump."
      ],
      "id": "en-tail_end-en-noun-tZTIXcjg",
      "links": [
        [
          "hindmost",
          "hindmost"
        ],
        [
          "rear end",
          "rear end"
        ],
        [
          "butt",
          "butt"
        ],
        [
          "buttocks",
          "buttocks"
        ],
        [
          "hindquarter",
          "hindquarter"
        ],
        [
          "rump",
          "rump"
        ]
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "_dis1": "100 0",
          "word": "fag-end"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "100 0",
          "word": "rear end"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "100 0",
          "word": "tag end"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "100 0",
          "word": "tail-end"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "100 0",
          "word": "tailend"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "28 72",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "At the tail end of summer.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "text": "The tail end of a lecture.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "text": "The tail end of a conversation.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2016 December 20, Katie Rife, “Passengers strains the considerable charms of Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence”, in The Onion AV Club",
          "text": "An equipment malfunction has woken him up 90 years early, and he’s now doomed to live out the rest of his life surrounded by sushi bars and infinity pools, but not a single human companion.(The other 5,000 passengers on board will wake up at the tail end of the ship’s 120-year voyage to Earth colony Homestead-II.)",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "The last part of a period of time, event, or situation; the concluding or final part."
      ],
      "id": "en-tail_end-en-noun-qm7UvLJB",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(figurative) The last part of a period of time, event, or situation; the concluding or final part."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "figuratively"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "tail end"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English compound terms",
    "English countable nouns",
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English nouns",
    "English terms derived from Middle English",
    "English terms inherited from Middle English"
  ],
  "derived": [
    {
      "word": "Tail End Charlie"
    },
    {
      "word": "tailender"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "enm",
        "3": "taylende"
      },
      "expansion": "Middle English taylende",
      "name": "inh"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "tail",
        "3": "end"
      },
      "expansion": "tail + end",
      "name": "com"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From Middle English taylende; equivalent to tail + end.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "tail ends",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "tail end (plural tail ends)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "glosses": [
        "The hindmost part of anything (a person, animal, or object), the rear end; the butt, buttocks; hindquarters, rump."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "hindmost",
          "hindmost"
        ],
        [
          "rear end",
          "rear end"
        ],
        [
          "butt",
          "butt"
        ],
        [
          "buttocks",
          "buttocks"
        ],
        [
          "hindquarter",
          "hindquarter"
        ],
        [
          "rump",
          "rump"
        ]
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English terms with usage examples"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "At the tail end of summer.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "text": "The tail end of a lecture.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "text": "The tail end of a conversation.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2016 December 20, Katie Rife, “Passengers strains the considerable charms of Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence”, in The Onion AV Club",
          "text": "An equipment malfunction has woken him up 90 years early, and he’s now doomed to live out the rest of his life surrounded by sushi bars and infinity pools, but not a single human companion.(The other 5,000 passengers on board will wake up at the tail end of the ship’s 120-year voyage to Earth colony Homestead-II.)",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "The last part of a period of time, event, or situation; the concluding or final part."
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(figurative) The last part of a period of time, event, or situation; the concluding or final part."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "figuratively"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "fag-end"
    },
    {
      "word": "rear end"
    },
    {
      "word": "tag end"
    },
    {
      "word": "tail-end"
    },
    {
      "word": "tailend"
    }
  ],
  "word": "tail end"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-30 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (210104c and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.