bobtail
Americanadjective
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Also bobtailed having a bobtail.
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cut short; docked; cropped.
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shorter or briefer than usual; abbreviated.
Several legislative items must be dropped from the current bobtail session of Congress.
verb (used with object)
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bobtails,
present (3rd person singular)
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bobtailed,
past participle, past
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bobtailing
present participle
noun
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a docked or diminutive tail
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an animal with such a tail
adjective
verb
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to dock the tail of
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to cut short; curtail
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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bobtailsimple
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bobtailssimple
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have bobtailedperfect
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has bobtailedperfect
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am bobtailingprogressive
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are bobtailingprogressive
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is bobtailingprogressive
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have been bobtailingperfect progressive
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has been bobtailingperfect progressive
Past
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bobtailedsimple
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had bobtailedperfect
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was bobtailingprogressive
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were bobtailingprogressive
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had been bobtailingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of bobtail
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
He drives a bobtail truck moving furniture across Southern California.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 5, 2024
It was a large, robust cat about the size of a jaguar, with an elongated face, lanky front legs, and a sloping back that ended in a bobtail.
From Science Daily ● May 30, 2024
Crook’s group has been comparing several painkillers in bobtail squid, but Crook says that they haven’t had much luck figuring out which drugs are the most effective, despite testing hundreds of animals.
From Scientific American ● Sep. 20, 2023
Research will shift from the day octopus to the Hawaiian bobtail squid, which is unregulated.
From Washington Times ● Feb. 16, 2023
This one was almost twice as large, chunky and heavy, with a short bobtail and thick furry legs.
From "The Incredible Journey" by Sheila Burnford
“If you cannot see the difference between that frumpish gown of yours, with its little bobtails and fringes, and those pretty dresses before us, I must say you are as blind as a bat, Mattie.”
From Not Like Other Girls by Carey, Rosa Nouchette
I’ve little time to lose: I’m getting old— Stiff-jointed in my wits, that once were nimble As a ferret among the bobtails, old and dull.
From Krindlesyke by Gibson, Wilfrid Wilson
Folks ain't got no right to censuah othah folks about dey habits; Him dat giv' de squir'ls de bushtails made de bobtails fu' de rabbits.
From The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar by Howells, William Dean
The wonderful Wizard had asked to join the party, and with him came his friend the Shaggy Man, who was shaggy but not ragged, being dressed in fine silks with satin shags and bobtails.
From The Emerald City of Oz by Baum, L. Frank (Lyman Frank)
Sometimes he calls the Academicians, "Sons of Canvas;" sometimes "Tagrags and bobtails of the sacred brush."
From History of English Humour, Vol. 2 by L'Estrange, Alfred Guy Kingan
First came one normal, one tailless and one bobtailed kitten.
From Time Magazine Archive
In a bobtailed telephone survey taken ten days before for the state AFL-CIO organization, Quayle was less successful in catching the Wallace surge.
From Time Magazine Archive
Historicus presents a scholar's brief packed with bobtailed quotations of tortured Marxist prose.
From Time Magazine Archive
It looks, in the words of the Carronade's crewmen, like "a bobtailed cruiser."
From Time Magazine Archive
Just as she's rushing out, sees a cat, a damned, bobtailed, battered old kitten she's picked off the streets, saved from a gang of ruffians in first act.
From The Salamander by Johnson, Owen
Other terms that will prove catnip for lovers of professional slang: bobtailing, deadheading, lollipops.
From New York Times ● May 31, 2017
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
