entail
[verb en-teyl; noun en-teyl, en-teyl]
- to cause or involve by necessity or as a consequence: a loss entailing no regret.
- to impose as a burden: Success entails hard work.
- Law. to limit the passage of (a landed estate) to a specified line of heirs, so that it cannot be alienated, devised, or bequeathed.
- Law. to cause (anything) to descend to a fixed series of possessors.
Show More
- the act of entailing.
- Law. the state of being entailed.
- any predetermined order of succession, as to an office.
- Law. something that is entailed, as an estate.
- Law. the rule of descent settled for an estate.
Show More
Origin of entail
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for entails
Contemporary Examples
In fact, that candy store is heavy industry, with all the mess that entails.
These entrepreneurs have chosen to incorporate as private businesses, with all the legal rights and privileges that entails.
Refusing to Marry Same-Sex Couples Isn’t Religious Freedom, It’s Just DiscriminationSally Kohn
October 23, 2014
In the contemporary Western world, unless we are eating sandwiches or soup, almost every meal we eat now entails a fork.
But this entails extraordinary risks and often months of planning.
Now Cindy Bullens is telling the world she has decided to be Cidny, a man—and is grappling with all that entails.
Historical Examples
I do not court publicity, but I cannot shirk my duty because it entails that.
The CreviceWilliam John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
The Ihrm must be put on, and the obligations of abstinence which it entails must be observed.
The Faith of IslamEdward Sell
A choice which entails a concealed consequence is as to that consequence no choice.
The Common LawOliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
The book also entails conventions of intellectual ownership.
The Civilization of IlliteracyMihai Nadin
For the Land's End is a show-place, and we know what that entails.
The Cornwall CoastArthur L. Salmon
entail
- to bring about or impose by necessity; have as a necessary consequencethis task entails careful thought
- property law to restrict (the descent of an estate) to a designated line of heirs
- logic to have as a necessary consequence
Show More
- property law
- the restriction imposed by entailing an estate
- an estate that has been entailed
Show More
Word Origin
C14: entaillen, from en- 1 + taille limitation, tail ²
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for entails
entail
v.
mid-14c., "convert (an estate) into 'fee tail' (feudum talliatum)," from en- (1) "make" + taile "legal limitation," especially of inheritance, ruling who succeeds in ownership and preventing it from being sold off, from Anglo-French taile, Old French taillie, past participle of taillier "allot, cut to shape," from Late Latin taliare. Sense of "have consequences" is 1829, from notion of "inseparable connection." Related: Entailed; entailling.
Show More
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper