Entail

/ɛnˈteɪl/ · verb

Meaning

(transitive) To imply, require, or invoke..

Definitions by Sense

1. (transitive) To imply, require, or invoke.
2. (transitive) To settle or fix inalienably on a person or thing, or on a person and his descendants or a certain line of descendants; -- said especially of an estate; to bestow as a heritage.
3. (transitive, obsolete) To appoint hereditary possessor.
4. That which is entailed.
5. (obsolete) Delicately carved ornamental work; intaglio.

Example Sentences

This activity will entail careful attention to detail.

What mattered to Hegel, and now Leach, is a presupposedly, historically necessary evolution in the structure of political power, entailing the creation of new classes of powerless victims to be sacrificed on the altar of abstract ideological concepts (i.e., “choice”).

God's immateriality entails the divine attribute of incorporeality, that God is neither a body nor embodied.

It also entailed well-documented disadvantages: a population increase in an unsustaining economy, a battered self-identity, a plague of substance abuse.

1754-1762, David Hume, The History of England Allowing them to entail their estates.

Mr. Bennet's property consisted almost entirely in an estate of two thousand a year, which, unfortunately for his daughters, was entailed, in default of heirs male, on a distant relation; and their mother's fortune, though ample for her situation in life, could but ill supply the deficiency of his.

I here entail The crown to thee and to thine heirs forever.

Apparently, Henry VII visited the city [Bristol] in 1487, "taking care to entail a sumptuary fine on the citizens because their wives dressed too gaudily".

Synonyms for entail

Antonyms for entail

Related Words

Word Forms

• entails
• entailing
• entailed
• intail

Usage Notes

Choose a synonym only when it preserves the intended meaning, tone, and grammar of the full sentence.

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