Tails

How to spell tails

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce tails

What does tails mean?

1. nounThe rear appendages of animals, or things resembling them in shape or position.
2. nounThe reverse side of a coin, opposite the side bearing the head.
3. nounA man's formal evening coat with a long divided rear section.

Tails in a sentence

• The two dogs wagged their tails when the owner walked in.

• She called tails before the referee flipped the coin.

• The groom wore a top hat and tails for the wedding ceremony.

• The vet examined the kittens' tails for any sign of injury.

• The coin landed on tails, so the visiting team kicked off.

• The orchestra conductor appeared on stage in full tails.

Where does tails come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word descends from the Old English 'tægl' or 'tægel', which named the rear appendage of an animal and belonged to the same Germanic family as the Old High German 'zagal'. The original sense pointed to something hairy or trailing at the back, and over the centuries the spelling smoothed down to the modern 'tail'. From the literal animal sense English extended it to anything resembling a tail in position or shape: the back end of a coat, the trailing part of a kite, even the side of a coin opposite the head. The coin sense of 'tails' arose because the reverse once carried a design opposite the monarch's portrait, and the formal-dress meaning comes from the long divided rear of a gentleman's evening coat. The whole point worth remembering for spelling is that this 'tails' shares no ancestry with 'tales' (stories), which comes instead from Old English 'talu', meaning a narrative or reckoning.

How the word is built

• tail (rear appendage, native root)
• -s (plural/noun marker)

Words that sound like tails

They sound the same but mean different things, so the meaning decides which spelling to write.

• tales: Stories or narrative accounts, especially imaginative or entertaining ones.