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Stalk vs Tail - What's the difference?

stalk | tail |

As nouns the difference between stalk and tail

is that stalk is the stem or main axis of a plant, which supports the seed-carrying parts or stalk can be a particular episode of trying to follow or contact someone while tail is .

As a verb stalk

is (lb) to approach slowly and quietly in order not to be discovered when getting closer or stalk can be to walk haughtily.

stalk

English

(wikipedia stalk)

Etymology 1

From (etyl) stalke, diminutive of stale'' 'ladder upright, stalk', from (etyl) stalu 'wooden upright', from (etyl) ).

Noun

(en noun)
  • The stem or main axis of a plant, which supports the seed-carrying parts.
  • :
  • *
  • *:Three chairs of the steamer type, all maimed, comprised the furniture of this roof-garden, withon one of the copings a row of four red clay flower-pots filled with sun-baked dust from which gnarled and rusty stalks thrust themselves up like withered elfin limbs.
  • The petiole, pedicel, or peduncle of a plant.
  • Something resembling the stalk of a plant, such as the stem of a quill.
  • :(Grew)
  • (lb) An ornament in the Corinthian capital resembling the stalk of a plant, from which the volutes and helices spring.
  • One of the two upright pieces of a ladder.
  • :(Chaucer)
  • (label)
  • #A stem or peduncle, as in certain barnacles and crinoids.
  • #The narrow basal portion of the abdomen of a hymenopterous insect.
  • #The peduncle of the eyes of decapod crustaceans.
  • (lb) An iron bar with projections inserted in a core to strengthen it; a core arbor.
  • Etymology 2

    From (etyl) stalken, from (etyl) -).Robert K. Barnhart and Sol Steinmetz, eds., ''Chambers Dictionary of Etymology , s.v. "stalk2" (New York: Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd., 2006), 1057. Alternate etymology connects (etyl) 'to steal'.

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • (lb) To approach slowly and quietly in order not to be discovered when getting closer.
  • *Sir (Walter Scott) (1771-1832)
  • *:As for shooting a man from behind a wall, it is cruelly like to stalking a deer.
  • *
  • *:But they had already discovered that he could be bullied, and they had it their own way; and presently Selwyn lay prone upon the nursery floor, impersonating a ladrone while pleasant shivers chased themselves over Drina, whom he was stalking .
  • (lb) To (try to) follow or contact someone constantly, often resulting in harassment.(w)
  • :
  • (lb) To walk slowly and cautiously; to walk in a stealthy, noiseless manner.
  • *(John Dryden) (1631-1700)
  • *:[Bertran] stalks close behind her, like a witch's fiend, / Pressing to be employed.
  • :(Shakespeare)
  • (lb) To walk behind something, such as a screen, for the purpose of approaching game; to proceed under cover.
  • *(Francis Bacon) (1561-1626)
  • *:The king"I must stalk ," said he.
  • *(Michael Drayton) (1563-1631)
  • *:One underneath his horse, to get a shoot doth stalk .
  • Conjugation
    (en-conj-simple)

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A particular episode of trying to follow or contact someone.
  • A hunt (of a wild animal).
  • References

    Etymology 3

    1530, 'to walk haughtily', perhaps from (etyl) 'high, lofty, steep, stiff'; see above

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To walk haughtily.
  • * Dryden
  • With manly mien he stalked along the ground.
  • * Addison
  • Then stalking through the deep, / He fords the ocean.
  • * Mericale
  • I forbear myself from entering the lists in which he has long stalked alone and unchallenged.

    tail

    English

    Etymology 1

    From (etyl) (m), (m), (m), from (etyl) . In some senses, apparently by a generalization of the usual opposition between head'' and ''tail .

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (anatomy) The caudal appendage of an animal that is attached to its posterior and near the anus.
  • Most primates have a tail and fangs.
  • The tail-end of an object, e.g. the rear of an aircraft's fuselage, containing the tailfin.
  • An object or part of an object resembling a tail in shape, such as the thongs on a cat-o'-nine-tails.
  • * (rfdate), Harvey:
  • Doretus writes a great praise of the distilled waters of those tails that hang on willow trees.
  • The rear structure of an aircraft, the empennage.
  • Specifically, the visible stream of dust and gases blown from a comet by the solar wind.
  • The latter part of a time period or event, or (collectively) persons or objects represented in this part.
  • (statistics) The part of a distribution most distant from the mode; as , a long tail.
  • One who surreptitiously follows another.
  • (cricket) The last four or five batsmen in the batting order, usually specialist bowlers.
  • (typography) The lower loop of the letters in the Roman alphabet, as in g'', ''q'' or ''y .
  • (chiefly, in the plural) The side of a coin not bearing the head; normally the side on which the monetary value of the coin is indicated; the reverse.
  • (mathematics) All the last terms of a sequence, from some term on.
  • A sequence (a_n) is said to be ''frequently 0'' if every tail of the sequence contains 0.
  • The buttocks or backside.
  • * 1499 , (John Skelton), The Bowge of Courte :
  • By Goddis sydes, syns I her thyder broughte, / She hath gote me more money with her tayle / Than hath some shyppe that into Bordews sayle.
  • *, I.49:
  • They were wont to wipe their tailes .
  • (slang) The male member of a person or animal.
  • After the burly macho nudists' polar bear dip, their tails''' were spectacularly shrunk, so they looked like an immature kid's innocent '''tail .
  • (slang, uncountable) Sexual intercourse.
  • I'm gonna get me some tail tonight.
  • (kayaking) The stern; the back of the kayak.
  • The back, last, lower, or inferior part of anything.
  • * Bible, Deuteronomy xxviii. 13:
  • The Lord will make thee the head, and not the tail .
  • A train or company of attendants; a retinue.
  • * (rfdate), Walter Scott:
  • "Ah," said he, "if you saw but the chief with his tail on."
  • (anatomy) The distal tendon of a muscle.
  • A downy or feathery appendage of certain achens, formed of the permanent elongated style.
  • (surgery) A portion of an incision, at its beginning or end, which does not go through the whole thickness of the skin, and is more painful than a complete incision; called also tailing.
  • One of the strips at the end of a bandage formed by splitting the bandage one or more times.
  • (nautical) A rope spliced to the strap of a block, by which it may be lashed to anything.
  • (music) The part of a note which runs perpendicularly upward or downward from the head; the stem.
  • (mining) A tailing.
  • (architecture) The bottom or lower portion of a member or part such as a slate or tile.
  • Synonyms

    * ass, poontang, poon, tang, pussy, punani

    Derived terms

    * cat-o'-nine-tails * chase one's tail * coattail * cocktail * have the world by the tail * rattail * shirttail * tailback * tailcoat * tail covert * tail-end * tail feather * tail fin * tailgate * tail lamp * tail light * tail-off * tailpiece * tailpipe * tailplane * tail-race * tail-skid * tailspin * tailstock * tailwheel * tailwind * turn tail * wagtail * whitetail * yellowtail

    See also

    * caudal

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To follow and observe surreptitiously.
  • Tail that car!
  • (architecture) To hold by the end; said of a timber when it rests upon a wall or other support; with in'' or ''into
  • (nautical) To swing with the stern in a certain direction; said of a vessel at anchor.
  • This vessel tails downstream.
  • To follow or hang to, like a tail; to be attached closely to, as that which can not be evaded.
  • * Fuller
  • Nevertheless his bond of two thousand pounds, wherewith he was tailed , continued uncancelled.
  • To pull or draw by the tail.
  • (Hudibras)

    Etymology 2

    From (etyl), probably from a shortened form of entail .

    Adjective

  • (legal) Limited; abridged; reduced; curtailed.
  • estate tail

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (legal) Limitation of inheritance to certain heirs.
  • tail male — limitation to male heirs
    in tail — subject to such a limitation

    Anagrams

    * ----