horse-tail, ˈhorsetail
1. a. A horse's tail.
| c 1400 Destr. Troy 10311 He..Festnyt hym..by his fete euyn, Hard by the here of his horse tayle. a 1533 Ld. Berners Huon lxxxi. 251, I say and iuge that Gerarde be drawen at horse taylles, and then hangyd. 1596 Shakes. Tam. Shr. iv. i. 96 Let them..not presume to touch a haire of my Masters horse-taile, till they kisse their hands. 1737 Pope Hor. Epist. ii. i. 63 Then by the rule that made the Horse-tail bare, I pluck out year by year, as hair by hair. 1846 H. Torrens Rem. Milit. Hist. I. 162 The Turk..made his standard of a horse-tail. |
b. Used in Turkey as an ornament, as a military standard, the symbol of war, and as an ensign denoting the rank of a pasha: see tail; hence, † the office of a pasha (obs.). Anciently used also by the Bulgarians.
| 1613 Purchas Pilgrimage (1614) 695 Horse-tailes are great jewels, and two slaves will be given for one taile. 1683 Lond. Gaz. No. 1860/6 The King of Poland has taken two Horse Tails (which are the Turks Signals of War). 1703 Maundrell Journ. Jerus. (1721) 127 Next were brought the Bassa's two Horse Tails. 1711 Luttrell Brief Rel. (1857) VI. 709 The sultan has resolved..to renew the war against Muscovy, having for that end caused the horse tail (their signal of war) to be placed again before the seraglio. 1771 Smollett Humph. Cl. 5 June, The dey will make you a horse-tail. 1840 Blackw. Mag. XLVII. 219 While all Christendom trembled at the sight of the horse-tails, Soliman died. 1847 Disraeli Tancred vi. x. 1855 Milman Lat. Chr. v. viii. II. 423 They [the Bulgarians] were to go to battle no longer under their old national ensign, the horse-tail, but under the banner of the Cross. |
c. Usu. horse's tail. A woman's hair-style in which the hair is arranged to resemble the shape of the tail of a horse; a ‘pony-tail’.
| 1872 Trollope Eustace Diamonds (1873) II. xxxiv. 100 How a man can like to kiss a face with a dirty horse's tail all whizzling about it, is what I can't at all understand. 1953 R. Fuller Second Curtain v. 79 Her hair done in a fringe and horse's tail. 1955 G. Freeman Liberty Man i. iii. 48 She had blondish hair tied into a horse's tail with a piece of black ribbon. 1960 ‘J. & E. Bonett’ No Grave for Lady ii. 27 She wore jeans and a cotton sweater, her hair was in a horse-tail. |
d. (See quots.)
| 1880 L. Higgin Handbk. Embroidery i. 8 ‘Japanese gold thread’..must..be laid on, and stitched down with a fine yellow silk, known as ‘Maltese’, or ‘Horse-tail’. 1960 B. Snook Eng. Hist. Embroidery 104 A woman's court dress (1780)... Variation is obtained by the use of floss silk and horsetail, a tightly twisted silk. |
2. a. The common name of the genus Equisetum, consisting of cryptogamous plants with hollow jointed stems, and whorls of slender branches at the joints; the whole having some resemblance to a horse's tail.
| 1538 Turner Libellus, Hippuris, latinis dicitur equisetum, aut cauda equina..aliquibus dicitur Hors tayle, non⁓nullis Hally Water stryncle, Dysshewasshynges. 1577 B. Googe Heresbach's Husb. i. (1586) 45 For Pasture or Meddowe..the woorst as Plinie saith, is Russhes, Fearne, and Horsetayle. 1664 Power Exp. Philos. i. 31 The Water spider, hath two hairy geniculated horns, knootted or joynted at several divisions like..Hors-tayl. 1794 Martyn Rousseau's Bot. xxxii. 488 Wood Horsetail has the leaves compound or divided, and the spikes at the end of the same stems. 1873 H. E. H. King Disciples, Ugo Bassi iv. (1877) 146 Brushing past the rigid arms Of hideous giant horsetails. |
b. † female horse-tail, an old name for Hippuris or mare's-tail, a phanerogamous plant somewhat resembling Equisetum in habit. shrubby horse-tail, name for shrubs of the genus Ephedra (N.O. Gnetaceæ), having small scale-like leaves resembling the branches of Equisetum. tree horse-tail = horsetail-tree: see 5.
| 1597 Gerarde Herbal ii. ccccxlii. 957 Cauda equina fæmina, the female Horse taile. 1794 Martyn Rousseau's Bot. xi. 116 In the books it [Hippuris] is called Female Horsetail or Mare's-tail. 1884 Miller Plant-n., Horse⁓tail, Great Shrubby, Ephedra distachya. Ibid., Casuarina equisetifolia...Swamp Oak of Australia, Tree-Horse-tail. |
3. ‘A hippurite.’ (Cent. Dict.)
4. Anat. The leash of nerves in which the spinal cord ends: called in mod.L. cauda equina.
5. attrib. and Comb., as horsetail-like adj., horse-tail standard (see 1 b); resembling a horse's tail, as horse-tail cloud, horse-tail lock; also horsetail-lichen, name for various species of Alectoria, esp. A. jubata, having a slender pendulous thallus; horsetail-tree, a tree of the genus Casuarina, esp. the Australian C. equisetifolia, so called from the resemblance of the leafless jointed branches to those of Equisetum.
| 1600 Rowlands Lett. Humours Blood C, Aske Humors, why a Feather he doth weare?.. Or what he doth with such a Horse-taile locke? 1612 Pasquil's Night-Cap (1877) 7 His sweet worship with his horse-taile locke. 1831 Howitt Seasons (1837) 228 The vault of heaven was strewn with what are called horse-tail clouds. 1891 Pall Mall G. 23 Oct. 3/2 [A yucca with] enormous horsetail-like panicles of white flowers. |