entail

[verb en-teyl; noun en-teyl, en-teyl]

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verb (used with object)

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.

noun

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.

Origin of entail

1350–1400; Middle English entailen (v.), entail (noun). See en-¹, tail²

Related formsen·tail·er, nounen·tail·ment, nounnon·en·tailed, adjectivepre·en·tail, verb (used with object)un·en·tailed, adjective

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Related Words for entails

require, necessitate, encompass, involve, entangle, impose, evoke, demand, occasion, tangle, cause

Examples from the Web for entails

Contemporary Examples of entails

In fact, that candy store is heavy industry, with all the mess that entails.
New York’s Conservative Fracking Ban
Jay Michaelson
December 20, 2014
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 Discrimination
Sally 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.
The Strange Way We Eat: Bee Wilson’s ‘Consider the Fork’
Bee Wilson
October 13, 2012
But this entails extraordinary risks and often months of planning.
Libya: Former Exiles Chafe Over Surge of Salafism
Jamie Dettmer
September 23, 2012
Now Cindy Bullens is telling the world she has decided to be Cidny, a man—and is grappling with all that entails.
Singer Cindy Bullens Goes Public: She’s Becoming Cidny, a Man
Cidny Bullens
June 16, 2012

Historical Examples of entails

I do not court publicity, but I cannot shirk my duty because it entails that.
The Crevice
William 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 Islam
Edward Sell
A choice which entails a concealed consequence is as to that consequence no choice.
The Common Law
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
The book also entails conventions of intellectual ownership.
The Civilization of Illiteracy
Mihai Nadin
For the Land's End is a show-place, and we know what that entails.
The Cornwall Coast
Arthur L. Salmon

British Dictionary definitions for entails

entail

verb (tr)

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

noun

property law

the restriction imposed by entailing an estate
an estate that has been entailed

Derived Formsentailer, noun

Word Origin for entail

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

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.