entail
/ɛnˈteɪl/ verb C1- To imply, require, or invoke. · This activity will entail careful attention to detail.
- 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. · 1754-1762, David Hume, The History of England Allowing them to entail their estates.
He/she/it entails · Past entailed · Past participle entailed · -ing form entailing
Verb forms
- Base form
- entail
- He/she/it
- entails
- Past
- entailed
- Past participle
- entailed
- -ing form
- entailing
From the library
“The Spada family was one of the oldest and most powerful families of the fifteenth century; and in those times, when other opportunities for investment were wanting, such accumulations of gold and jewels were by no means rare; there are at this day Roman families perishing of hunger, though possessed of nearly a million in diamonds and jewels, handed down by entail, and which they cannot touch.”
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 do think it is the hardest thing in the world, that your estate should be entailed away from your own children; and I am sure, if I had been you, I should have tried long ago to do something or other about it.”
Jane and Elizabeth attempted to explain to her the nature of an entail.
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