entail
entail Lexical Profile
entail Game Scores & Validity
• verb
To involve or require something as an inevitable or necessary part, condition, or consequence.
"Restoring the historic theater will entail months of painstaking architectural and structural work."
To settle the inheritance of a landed property over multiple generations so that it remains within a specific line of heirs and cannot be sold or bequeathed freely (in law).
"The wealthy landowner decided to entail the estate upon his eldest nephew to keep the ancestral lands intact."
• noun
A legal settlement of the inheritance of a landed estate over a number of generations so that ownership remains within a particular family or specified line of heirs, preventing any individual heir from selling or bequeathing it freely.
"In many nineteenth-century novels, the plot revolves around daughters who cannot inherit the family estate because of a strict legal entail."
An estate or property Whose succession is limited to a specified line of heirs by a legal settlement.
"The young cousin stood to inherit the entire entail upon the death of the current squire."
Word Nuance & Usage
When 'entail' is followed directly by a verb, it must take the gerund (-ing) form rather than an infinitive (e.g., 'The role entails traveling frequently,' not 'entails to travel').
• Rhymes for entail
Word Origin & Etymology
From Middle English entailen, derived from Anglo-French entailler ('to cut into, carve, or limit an inheritance'), from en- ('in, into') and tailler ('to cut'). It originally referred to a legal restriction 'cutting' or limiting how an estate could be inherited before broadening to mean any necessary consequence.