Adjacent Words

Entail definitions

	Tweet

Webster's 1828 Dictionary

ENTA'IL, n.
1. An estate or fee entailed, or limited indescent to a particular heir or heirs. Estates-tail are general, as when lands and tenements are given to one and the heirs of his body begotten; or special, as when lands and tenements are given to one and the heirs of his body by a particular wife.
2. Rule of descent settled for an estate.
3. Engraver's work; inlay.
ENTA'IL, v.t. To settle the descent of lands and tenements, by gift to a man and to certain heirs specified, so that neither the donee nor any subsequent possessor can alienate or bequeath it; as, to entail a manor to AB and to his eldest son, or to his heirs of his body begotten, or to his heirs by a particular wife.
1. To fix unalienably on a person or thing, or on a person and his descendants. By the apostasy misery is supposed to be entailed on mankind. The intemperate often entail infirmities, diseases and ruin on their children.
2. [from the French verb.] To cut; to carve for ornament.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: land received by fee tail
2: the act of entailing property; the creation of a fee tail from a fee simple v
1: have as a logical consequence; "The water shortage means that we have to stop taking long showers" [syn: entail, imply, mean]
2: impose, involve, or imply as a necessary accompaniment or result; "What does this move entail?" [syn: entail, implicate]
3: limit the inheritance of property to a specific class of heirs [syn: fee-tail, entail]

Merriam Webster's

I. transitive verb Etymology: Middle English entailen, entaillen, from ¹en- + taile, taille limitation — more at tail Date: 14th century 1. to restrict (property) by limiting the inheritance to the owner's lineal descendants or to a particular class thereof 2. a. to confer, assign, or transmit as if by entail ; fasten <entailed on them indelible disgrace — Robert Browning> b. to fix (a person) permanently in some condition or status <entail him and his heirs unto the crown — Shakespeare> 3. to impose, involve, or imply as a necessary accompaniment or result <the project will entail considerable expense> • entailer noun • entailment noun II. noun Date: 14th century 1. a. an entailing especially of lands b. an entailed estate 2. something transmitted as if by entail

Oxford Reference Dictionary

v. & n. --v.tr. 1 necessitate or involve unavoidably (the work entails much effort). 2 Law bequeath (property etc.) so that it remains within a family. 3 (usu. foll. by on) bestow (a thing) inalienably. --n. Law 1 an entailed estate. 2 the succession to such an estate. Derivatives: entailment n. Etymology: ME, f. EN-(1) + AF taile TAIL(2)

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Entail En*tail", v. t. [imp. & p. p. Entailed; p. pr. & vb. n. Entailing.] [OE. entailen to carve, OF. entailler. See Entail, n.] 1. To settle or fix inalienably on a person or thing, or on a person and his descendants or a certain line of descendants; -- said especially of an estate; to bestow as an heritage. Allowing them to entail their estates. --Hume. I here entail The crown to thee and to thine heirs forever. --Shak. 2. To appoint hereditary possessor. [Obs.] To entail him and his heirs unto the crown. --Shak. 3. To cut or carve in a ornamental way. [Obs.] Entailed with curious antics. --Spenser.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Entail En*tail", n. [OE. entaile carving, OF. entaille, F., an incision, fr. entailler to cut away; pref. en- (L. in) + tailler to cut; LL. feudum talliatum a fee entailed, i. e., curtailed or limited. See Tail limitation, Tailor.] 1. That which is entailed. Hence: (Law) (a) An estate in fee entailed, or limited in descent to a particular class of issue. (b) The rule by which the descent is fixed. A power of breaking the ancient entails, and of alienating their estates. --Hume. 2. Delicately carved ornamental work; intaglio. [Obs.] ``A work of rich entail.'' --Spenser.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

(entails, entailing, entailed) If one thing entails another, it involves it or causes it. (FORMAL) Such a decision would entail a huge political risk... I'll never accept parole because that entails me accepting guilt. VERB: V n, V n -ing

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

v. a. 1. Transfer (by inalienable title), settle inalienably, make incapable of conveyance. 2. Transmit (by necessity), fix unalterably, devolve as a necessary consequence, involve inevitably.

Moby Thesaurus

add a codicil, affect, allegorize, allude to, argue, assume, be indicative of, be significant of, be symptomatic of, bequeath, bequeathal, bequest, bespeak, betoken, birthright, borough-English, bring, bring to mind, call for, cause, characterize, coheirship, comprise, connote, contain, coparcenary, demand, denominate, denote, devise, differentiate, disclose, display, execute a will, express, gavelkind, give evidence, give rise to, give token, hand down, hand on, heirloom, heirship, hereditament, heritable, heritage, heritance, highlight, hint, identify, implicate, imply, import, impose, incorporeal hereditament, indicate, infer, inheritance, insinuate, intimate, involve, law of succession, lead to, leave, legacy, line of succession, make a bequest, make a will, manifest, mark, mean, mean to say, mode of succession, necessitate, note, occasion, pass on, patrimony, point indirectly to, postremogeniture, presume, presuppose, primogeniture, require, reveal, reversion, show, signify, stand for, subsume, succession, suggest, suppose, symptomatize, symptomize, take, take for granted, take in, testify, transmit, ultimogeniture, will, will and bequeath, will to