the.com/tail
the body's punctuation mark, wagging joy or warning you off entirely
means The flexible appendage extending from the rear of an animal's body, or by extension the trailing end or rearmost part of anything.
from From Old English 'tægl,' the hairy hindmost bit of a beast, with cousins across the Germanic family — Old High German 'zagal' among them — pointing back to a Proto-Germanic root that seems to have meant a tuft or lock of hair. The trail of meaning then grew its own tail: from animal rump to the back end of comets, coats, queues, and stories.
- human relic
- Embryos grow tails, then absorb them weeks later
- lizard escape
- Many drop their tails to flee predators alive
- balance beam
- Cheetahs steer at full sprint using their tails
- mood meter
- Dog tail wags lean right when happy
- comet origin
- Comet tails always point away from the sun
manx cat — cat breed from isle of man with no tail or vestigial tail due to natural mutation
peacock tail — male indian peafowl displays 200+ iridescent feathers in courtship ritual
comet tail — ionized gas tail of halley's comet stretches 100 million km from sun
thresher shark tail — upper lobe of tail fin equals body length, used to stun fish schools