entail

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English entailen, also entaillen,^[2] formed from Middle English en- (“make, put into”) + taille (“limitation”), the noun being from Anglo-Norman taile (“limitation of inheritance”) or the adjective tailé.^[3][4][5][6] The Anglo-Norman word comes from Old French taillié, the past participle of taillier (“to allot, cut to shape”),^[5][6] from Late Latin tāliō (“to split”),^[5][6] and is the same word as tail² in the legal sense, the source also of tailor, detail, retail and tally.^[7][8] The verb meant converting an estate into a fee tail, in legal Latin feudum talliatum,^[5][3] and Ayto thinks the word was probably first coined in Anglo-Norman.^[7] In 16th-century legal Anglo-Latin it was rendered intalliāre.^[3] The noun entail is from the verb,^[3][4][9] perhaps influenced, Barnhart suggests, by en taille (“under a specific condition”).^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

In law, to settle an estate on a series of persons in succession so that no one holder can leave it as he pleases: 1380, in Wycliffe's works.^[3][6] The noun, the settlement of such a succession, is recorded in the same writings about 1380.^[3][6] Etymonline dates the verb to the mid-14th century.^[5]

Semantic evolution

From the legal settlement of land the verb was extended to bestowing anything as if by entail, as an inheritance that cannot be taken away: Barnhart finds this about 1422 and again in 1509,^[6] the OED from about 1504.^[3] Through the idea of an inseparable connection^[5][10] it came to mean attaching something to an estate, and then to anything (1593–1713, now obsolete),^[3][9] imposing trouble or expense on a person (1665, in Boyle),^[3][9] and finally bringing something on as a necessary consequence (1829, in Southey's Sir Thomas More).^[3][6][5] Ayto notes that this current main meaning, to have as a necessary or logical consequence, arose only in the 19th century.^[7] In logic the verb is used of premises that necessarily involve a conclusion.^[3][11] The noun followed a similar path: the fixed succession of an office or privilege (about 1380), the handing on of qualities or obligations (1706, in Defoe) and a necessary sequence (1662).^[3] Johnson (1755) defined the noun as the estate entailed and the rule of its descent.^[12]

Timeline

• 1380 – verb, in law, to settle an estate on a line of heirs.^[3][6]
• c. 1380 – noun, the settlement of the succession of an estate; also a fixed order of succession to an office.^[3]
• c. 1504 – to bestow as if by entail, as an inalienable possession.^[3] Barnhart finds this sense about 1422.^[6]
• 1593 – to attach as an inseparable appendage (obsolete by 1713).^[3]
• 1662 – noun, necessary sequence.^[3]
• 1665 – to impose inconvenience, expense or labour on someone.^[3]
• 1829 – to bring on as a necessary consequence; in logic, to involve a conclusion.^[3][6][5]

Meanings

Verb

1. To involve or require something as a necessary part or consequence: The new job entails a great deal of travel.^[2][11]
2. (law) To settle an estate or other property so that it passes to a fixed line of heirs and cannot be sold or left by will.^[2][11][3]
3. (logic) To have as a necessary consequence; of a proposition, to imply another logically.^[11][3]
4. To bestow something as if by entail, as a lasting inheritance.^[2][3]

Noun

1. (law) The act of entailing an estate; the restriction of its descent to a designated line of heirs.^[2][11][4]
2. (law) An estate that has been entailed, or the fixed line of succession to it.^[11][3][12]
3. Something passed down as an inheritance that cannot be given up, such as a quality or obligation.^[3][4]

Word family

• entailment
• entailer
• disentail

Related words

• tail
• tailor
• detail
• retail
• tally
• intaglio

Usage notes

An obsolete verb entail, to carve or sculpture (about 1394–1637), has a separate source, entailler, from intaleāre, and the obsolete noun entail, carving or the cut of a garment (about 1300–1577), comes from entaille; that family is now represented by intaglio.^[3][4][10] Johnson (1755) still listed "engraver's work; inlay" as an obsolete sense of the noun.^[12]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
7. ^ a b c Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
8. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
11. ^ a b c d e f Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
12. ^ a b c Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.