shirttail
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 1.38 in modern English
12
Scrabble Score
9
Letters
2
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
The single or split (then rather plural) bottom part of a shirt, below the waist, especially in the back, which, when not tucked into trousers or other vestment, hangs over the wearer's tail-end, like a tail.
noun
noun
Something small and unimportant.
Example Sentences
- "According to Linder, one of the rituals of the hunt entailed cutting off the shirttail of a hunter who shot at and missed a deer."
- "She looked like the same old Molly, only more so, wearing Levis and an old cotton shirt with the shirttail out; she had a clothespin in her mouth and three or four more in the shirt pocket."
- "There was something — did you ever catch hold of the shirttail of a dream and try to pull it back into your consciousness?"
- "Well, here we are, living in a city right on the shirttail of the city, and you're still not satisfied."
- "James Orr joined Henry Joy McCracken and the shirttail of his force in the Slemish Mountains."
- "When she pulled herself out of it, she was no longer homely Doreen, acne pits ruining her face, but she was, as she jokes, hanging on to the shirttail of youth."