I. ə̇n.ˈtāl, en.-, chiefly before pause or consonant -āəl transitive verb
( -ed/-ing/-s )
Etymology: Middle English entailen, entaillen, from en- (I) + taile, taille limitation — more at tail (limitation)
1.
a. : to restrict (property) as to course of descent upon the owner's death by limiting the inheritance to the owner's lineal descendants or to a particular class thereof (as to his male children)
b. : to convert (an estate in certain property) into a fee-tail estate : create such an estate in (property)
c. : to settle (land) upon a person in a way designed to preserve for possession in his family as far as legally possible
2.
a. : to confer, assign, or transmit as if by entail : burden indefinitely with
lament the stupid commonplace and often ribald names entailed upon the rivers and other features of the great West — Washington Irving
: fasten
blood revenge … could be entailed for many generations — A.P.Davies
— often used with on or upon
entailed on them indelible disgrace — Robert Browning
helped to entail upon them the ridicule of their neighbors — Tobias Smollett
b. obsolete
(1) : to attach inseparably to something : tack
(2) : to fix (a person) permanently in some status or condition : make (a person) the hereditary successor
entail him and his heirs unto the crown — Shakespeare
the method entailed upon medieval thought by its scholastic … character — H.O.Taylor
3.
a. : to impose, involve, or require as a necessary accompaniment or result
the work entails expense
political democracy entails a cultural democracy — K.I.L.Lansner
believed that the wrong faith would entail hellfire — R.H.Bainton
b. : to imply with strict logical necessity
a sentence s is said to entail a sentence t when the proposition expressed by t is deducible from the proposition expressed by s — A.J.Ayer
II. “, ˈen.ˌt- noun
( -s )
Etymology: Middle English entaile, entaille, from entailen, entaillen, v.
1.
a. : an entailing especially of lands : a settling of an estate tail
b. : an estate settled in fee tail or limited in descent to a particular class of issue
c. : the rule by which the descent is fixed : the fixed line of devolution
2.
a. : irremediable or assured transmission (as of a good or bad quality)
the entail of ignorance and vice on children born in such surroundings
b. : something (as a quality) that is transmitted as if by entail : legacy , inheritance
the doctrine … that every child coming into the world is born with an entail of sin — H.G.Goodykoontz
c. : logical or necessary consequence or sequence
an evil with a most unfortunate entail for the future — E.D.Soper