ˈfoxtail
[f. as prec. + tail n.]
1. The tail of a fox, a fox's brush. Formerly one of the badges of the fool or jester. † flap with a foxtail: see flap n. 1 b.
| ? 1370 Robt. Cicyle 57 The fole Roberd with hym went, Clad in a fulle sympulle garment, With foxe tayles to renne abowte. 1553, 1717 [see flap n. 1 b]. [a 1605 Montgom. Misc. P. iv. 48 Then tak me with the foxis taill a flap, Since that the Hevins are hinderers of my hap.] 1613 Purchas Pilgrimage ii. §2 (R.) Such a one is carried about the town with a boord fastned to his necke, all be-hanged with foxe⁓tayles. 1852 Seidel Organ 24 When they pulled out this stop, suddenly a large fox-tail flew into their faces. 1893 T. B. Foreman Trip to Spain 31 Their bells and ornaments of fox-tail. |
2. As the name of a plant:
a. One of various species of grass with soft brush-like spikes of flowers,
esp. Alopecurus pratensis.
| 1552 Huloet, Foxe taile, herbe, Alopecurus. 1597 Gerarde Herbal i. lviii. §i. 81 Foxetaile hath many grassie leaues or blades. 1799 J. Robertson Agric. Perth 208 The meadow fox tail (alopecurus pratensis). 1846 J. Baxter Libr. Pract. Agric. (ed. 4) I. 359 The foxtail flowers in April, May, and..June. |
b. A club-moss (
Lycopodium clavatum).
| [1800 Wordsw. Idle Shepherd-boys, That plant which in our dale We call stag-horn or fox's tail.] 1866 in Treas. Bot. |
3. In various technical uses (see
quots.).
| 1712 J. James tr. Le Blond's Gardening 195 These Pipes are..subject to Fox-Tails, which are the Roots of very small Trees, which passing by the Pores of the Earthen Pipe..grow to such Length and Bigness, as to stop up the Pipe entirely [so Fr. queue de renard (Littré)]. 1854 Badham Halieut 313 Willughby tells us that of salars caught in the Ribble, those of the first year are called smolts..those of the fourth, fox-tails. 1873 Weale's Dict. Terms (ed. 4), Fox⁓tail in metallurgy, the cinder obtained in the last stage of the charcoal-finery process; it is a cylindrical piece hollow in the centre. [So Fr. renard, quoted by Littré from Buffon.] |
4. attrib. and
Comb., as
foxtail-grass = foxtail 2 a;
foxtail-saw,
-wedging (see
quots.).
| 1597 Gerarde Herbal i. vii. §i. 8 The great *Foxe-taile grasse. 1711 J. Petiver in Phil. Trans. XXVII. 377 Rough ear'd Fox-tail Grass. 1813 Sir H. Davy Agric. Chem. (1814) 362 Meadow fox-tail grass. |
| 1874 Knight Dict. Mech. I. 912 *Fox-tail saw, a dovetail saw. |
| 1825 Hamilton Dict. Terms, *Foxtail wedging. 1842–76 Gwilt Archit. Gloss., Fox-tail Wedging, a method of fixing a tenon in a mortise by splitting the end of the tenon and inserting a projecting wedge, then entering the tenon into the mortise and driving it home. |