different between foot vs tail

English

Alternative forms

• foote (obsolete)
• (plural): feets (dialectal); foots (nonstandard)

Etymology

From Middle English fot, fote, foot, from Old English f?t, from Proto-West Germanic *f?t, from Proto-Germanic *f?ts, from Proto-Indo-European *p?ds.

Pronunciation

• enPR: fo?ot, IPA^(key): /f?t/, [f?t]
  • (General American) IPA^(key): [f?t?]
  • (US)
  • (UK) IPA^(key): [f?t?], [f?t?], [f??t]
  • (UK)
  • (UK)
  • (Canada) IPA^(key): [f?t?], [f??t?]
  • (Cape Flats; Indian South African) IPA^(key): [f?t]
  • (Estuary) IPA^(key): [f???t]
• Rhymes: -?t

Noun

foot (plural feet)

1. A biological structure found in many animals that is used for locomotion and that is frequently a separate organ at the terminal part of the leg.

2. (anatomy) Specifically, a human foot, which is found below the ankle and is used for standing and walking.
3. (often used attributively) Travel by walking.

4. The base or bottom of anything.

5. The part of a flat surface on which the feet customarily rest.

6. The end of a rectangular table opposite the head.

7. A short foot-like projection on the bottom of an object to support it.

8. A unit of measure equal to twelve inches or one third of a yard, equal to exactly 30.48 centimetres.

9. (music) A unit of measure for organ pipes equal to the wavelength of two octaves above middle C, approximately 328 mm.
10. (collective, military) Foot soldiers; infantry.
11. (cigars) The end of a cigar which is lit, and usually cut before lighting.
12. (sewing) The part of a sewing machine which presses downward on the fabric, and may also serve to move it forward.
13. (printing) The bottommost part of a typed or printed page.
14. (printing) The base of a piece of type, forming the sides of the groove.
15. (prosody) The basic measure of rhythm in a poem.
16. (phonology) The parsing of syllables into prosodic constituents, which are used to determine the placement of stress in languages along with the notions of constituent heads.
17. (nautical) The bottom edge of a sail.

18. (billiards) The end of a billiard or pool table behind the foot point where the balls are racked.
19. (botany) In a bryophyte, that portion of a sporophyte which remains embedded within and attached to the parent gametophyte plant.
20. (malacology) The muscular part of a bivalve mollusc or a gastropod by which it moves or holds its position on a surface.
21. (molecular biology) The globular lower domain of a protein.
22. (geometry) The point of intersection of one line with another that is perpendicular to it.
23. Fundamental principle; basis; plan.
    • 1732, George Berkeley, Alciphron, or the Minute Philosopher

      Answer directly upon the foot of dry reason.

24. Recognized condition; rank; footing.
    • May 20, 1742, Horace Walpole, letter to Horace Mann

      As to his being on the foot of a servant.

Usage notes

• (unit of length):
  • The ordinary plural of the unit of measurement is feet, but in many contexts, foot itself may be used ("he is six foot two"). This is a reflex of the Anglo-Saxon (Old English) genitive plural.
  • It is sometimes abbreviated ', such as in tables, lists or drawings.

Synonyms

• pes

Derived terms

Coordinate terms

• (unit of length): inch, yard, mile
• (end of a table): head, sides
• (bottom of a page): head, body
• (bottom edge of a sail): head, leech, luff
• (molecular domain): head, cleft, neck
• (infantry): horse

Descendants

• Sranan Tongo: futu

Translations

See also

• pedal, relating to the foot

Verb

foot (third-person singular simple present foots, present participle footing, simple past and past participle footed)

1. (transitive) To use the foot to kick (usually a ball).
2. (transitive) To pay (a bill).
3. To tread to measure of music; to dance; to trip; to skip.
   • 1836, Joanna Baillie, The Phantom, Act 1 (Dramas 2, p.217)

     There's time enough, I hope, To foot a measure with the bonnie bride,

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Dryden to this entry?)

4. To walk.
5. To tread.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Tickell to this entry?)

6. (obsolete) To set on foot; to establish; to land.
7. To renew the foot of (a stocking, etc.).

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Shakespeare to this entry?)

8. To sum up, as the numbers in a column; sometimes with up.

Derived terms

• foot the bill

Translations

References

Anagrams

• foto, ooft, toof

French

Etymology

Clipping of football.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /fut/

Noun

foot m (uncountable)

1. (colloquial) association football; football, soccer

Derived terms

• ballon de foot
• footeuse
• footeux

Middle English

Etymology 1

From Old English f?t.

Noun

foot

1. Alternative form of fot

Etymology 2

From fot (noun).

Verb

foot

1. Alternative form of footen

English

Pronunciation

• enPR: t?l, IPA^(key): /te?l/
• Homophones: tale, tael
• Rhymes: -e?l

Etymology 1

From Middle English tail, tayl, teil, from Old English tæ?l (“tail”), from Proto-Germanic *taglaz, *tagl? (“hair, fiber; hair of a tail”), from Proto-Indo-European *do?- (“hair of the tail”), from Proto-Indo-European *de?- (“to tear, fray, shred”). Cognate with Scots tail (“tail”), Dutch teil (“tail, haulm, blade”), Low German Tagel (“twisted scourge, whip of thongs and ropes; end of a rope”), German Zagel (“tail”), dialectal Danish tavl (“hair of the tail”), Swedish tagel (“hair of the tail, horsehair”), Norwegian tagl (“tail”), Icelandic tagl (“tail, horsetail, ponytail”), Gothic ???????????????? (tagl, “hair”). In some senses, apparently by a generalization of the usual opposition between head and tail.

Noun

tail (plural tails)

1. (anatomy) The caudal appendage of an animal that is attached to its posterior and near the anus.

2. An object or part of an object resembling a tail in shape, such as the thongs on a cat-o'-nine-tails.
3. The back, last, lower, or inferior part of anything.
4. The feathers attached to the pygostyle of a bird.
5. The tail-end of an object, e.g. the rear of an aircraft's fuselage, containing the tailfin.
   • 1862, Ballou's Dollar Monthly Magazine (volume 16, page 83)

     It was soon over, and the unmoved magistrate calmly ordained that Deborah Williams, Elizabeth and Faith Wilson, should be tied to a cart's tail, and thus led through the principal streets of the town, receiving during their progress twenty lashes each, well laid on, upon the naked back.

6. The rear structure of an aircraft, the empennage.
7. (astronomy) The visible stream of dust and gases blown from a comet by the solar wind.
8. The latter part of a time period or event, or (collectively) persons or objects represented in this part.
9. (statistics) The part of a distribution most distant from the mode; as, a long tail.
10. One who surreptitiously follows another.
11. (cricket) The lower order of batsmen in the batting order, usually specialist bowlers.
12. (typography) The lower loop of the letters in the Roman alphabet, as in g, q or y.

    Synonym: descender

13. (chiefly in the plural) The side of a coin not bearing the head; normally the side on which the monetary value of the coin is indicated; the reverse.
14. (mathematics) All the last terms of a sequence, from some term on.

15. (now colloquial, chiefly US) The buttocks or backside.
    • 1499, John Skelton, The Bowge of Courte:

      By Goddis sydes, syns I her thyder broughte, / She hath gote me more money with her tayle / Than hath some shyppe that into Bordews sayle.
16. (slang) The penis of a person or animal.
17. (slang, uncountable) Sexual intercourse.

    Synonyms: see Thesaurus:copulation

18. (kayaking) The stern; the back of the kayak.
19. A train or company of attendants; a retinue.
20. (anatomy) The distal tendon of a muscle.
21. (entomology) A filamentous projection on the tornal section of each hind wing of certain butterflies.
22. A downy or feathery appendage of certain achens, formed of the permanent elongated style.
23. (surgery) A portion of an incision, at its beginning or end, which does not go through the whole thickness of the skin, and is more painful than a complete incision; called also tailing.
24. One of the strips at the end of a bandage formed by splitting the bandage one or more times.
25. (nautical) A rope spliced to the strap of a block, by which it may be lashed to anything.
26. (music) The part of a note which runs perpendicularly upward or downward from the head; the stem.
27. (mining) A tailing.
28. (architecture) The bottom or lower portion of a member or part such as a slate or tile.
29. (colloquial, dated) A tailcoat.

Hyponyms

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

See also

• caudal

Verb

tail (third-person singular simple present tails, present participle tailing, simple past and past participle tailed)

1. (transitive) To follow and observe surreptitiously.

   Tail that car!

2. (architecture) To hold by the end; said of a timber when it rests upon a wall or other support; with in or into
3. (nautical) To swing with the stern in a certain direction; said of a vessel at anchor.

   This vessel tails downstream.

4. To follow or hang to, like a tail; to be attached closely to, as that which can not be evaded.

   • Nevertheless his bond of two thousand pounds, wherewith he was tailed, continued uncancelled.

5. To pull or draw by the tail.

Translations

Etymology 2

From Anglo-Norman, probably from a shortened form of entail.

Adjective

tail

1. (law) Limited; abridged; reduced; curtailed.

   estate tail

Noun

tail

1. (law) Limitation of inheritance to certain heirs.

   tail male — limitation to male heirs

   in tail — subject to such a limitation

Related terms

• entail

References

Anagrams

• ATLI, Ital, Ital., LIAT, LITA, Lita, TILA, Ta-li, Tila, alit, alti, ital, ital., lait, tali

Middle English

Noun

tail

1. Alternative form of tayl

Welsh

Noun

tail m (plural teiliau)

1. shit, dung

Derived terms

• maer biswail