Word.ws English Dictionary

bobtail

US/ˈbɑbteɪl/

bobtail noun: a short, or deliberately shortened tail.

Noun

bobtail (plural bobtails)

  1. A short, or deliberately shortened tail.
  2. An animal that has a bobtail, such as certain canines or nags.
  3. A tractor which performs without its trailer.
  4. A tractor-trailer that is relatively short in length.
    1. The tractor unit of a semi-truck without a trailer.
  5. (attributive, often) An open-ended straight or four flush.
    • a bobtail flush
  6. A bobtail squid.
  7. A bobtail skink.

Verb

bobtail (third-person singular simple present bobtails, present participle bobtailing, simple past and past participle bobtailed)

  1. To drive a tractor without its trailer.
    • 2002. David Diamond. The Trucker & The Professor, Wired (magazine), Issue 9.12http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/9.12/sheffi.html?pg=2&topic=&topic_set=
      He deposits his trailer at a Marten facility in nearby Stockton, and then drives without the trailer - that's called "bobtailing".
  2. To drive a truck or other vehicle without its trailer.
    • 2003. Bergmann Co. Bergmann's Cleaning History:https://web.archive.org/web/20071012131035/http://bergmanns.com/company_history.asp
      W.C. Bergmann was supplementing his meager lamplighter's income by "bobtailing"… picking up laundry and cleaning in his horse drawn truck...

Forms of bobtail

Noun
pluralbobtails
Verb
third-person singular presentbobtails
present participlebobtailing
past participlebobtailed
pastbobtailed

Origin of bobtail

From bob + tail.

Words formed from bobtail

Phrases with bobtail

Questions about bobtail

What does bobtail mean?
Bobtail means a short, or deliberately shortened tail.
What part of speech is bobtail?
Bobtail can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce bobtail?
Bobtail is pronounced /ˈbɑbteɪl/ (US).
What is the plural of bobtail?
The plural of bobtail is bobtails.

Words near bobtail in the dictionary

  1. bobstays
  2. Bobster
  3. bobstick
  4. bobsticks
  5. Bobsts
  6. bobtail
  7. bobtail flush
  8. bobtail lizard
  9. bobtail lizards
  10. bobtail skink
  11. bobtail skinks

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bobtail (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-bobtail.wav.

Cite this entry: “bobtail.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bobtail. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.