verb (used with object)
- to cause or involve by necessity or as a consequence: a loss entailing no regret.
- to impose as a burden: Success entails hard work.
- Law. to limit the passage of (a landed estate) to a specified line of heirs, so that it cannot be alienated, devised, or bequeathed.
- Law. to cause (anything) to descend to a fixed series of possessors.
noun
- the act of entailing.
- Law. the state of being entailed.
- any predetermined order of succession, as to an office.
- Law. something that is entailed, as an estate.
- Law. the rule of descent settled for an estate.
verb (tr)
- to bring about or impose by necessity; have as a necessary consequencethis task entails careful thought
- property law to restrict (the descent of an estate) to a designated line of heirs
- logic to have as a necessary consequence
noun
- property law
- the restriction imposed by entailing an estate
- an estate that has been entailed
mid-14c., “convert (an estate) into ‘fee tail’ (feudum talliatum),” from en- (1) “make” + taile “legal limitation,” especially of inheritance, ruling who succeeds in ownership and preventing it from being sold off, from Anglo-French taile, Old French taillie, past participle of taillier “allot, cut to shape,” from Late Latin taliare. Sense of “have consequences” is 1829, from notion of “inseparable connection.” Related: Entailed; entailling.