noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   The tail assembly of an aircraft.
2. 2
   the rear part of an aircraft wordnet
3. 3
   The feathers of an arrow or the tail fins of a bomb or rocket used to stabilize the longitudinal axis of the projectile parallel to the flight path.

Synonyms

All synonyms

tailtailtail assembly

Etymology

From French empennage (“feathers of an arrow”).

Related phrases

flight pathtail fin

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.