Word.ws English Dictionary

cail

cail verb: to throw, pelt; to throw weakly.

Verb

cail (third-person singular simple present cails, present participle cailing, simple past and past participle cailed)

  1. (dialectal) To throw, pelt; to throw weakly.
  2. (dialectal) To tilt up or turn over in order to discharge a load.
  3. (dialectal) To move awkwardly or uncertainly; to gambol, kick out one's heels like a colt.

Proper noun (1) capitalized: Cail

Cail

  1. (obsolete) Former name of Kayalpatnam

Proper noun (2) capitalized: Cail

Cail (plural Cails)

  1. A surname.

Forms of cail

Verb
third-person singular presentcails
present participlecailing
past participlecailed
pastcailed
alternative formcale
alternative formkail
alternative formkale
Proper noun
pluralCails

Origin of cail

Unknown. Perhaps from or related to Middle English kayl (“a blow, stroke”). Compare Middle English quale (“death, destruction”), from Old English cwalu (“a quelling with weapons, torment, a violent death, slaughter, destruction”).

Words formed from cail

  • cail along

Questions about cail

What does cail mean?
Cail means to throw, pelt; to throw weakly.
What part of speech is cail?
Cail can be a verb or a proper noun.
What is the past tense of cail?
The past tense of cail is cailed.

Words near cail in the dictionary

  1. Caifum
  2. Caifung
  3. caigua
  4. caiguas
  5. Caijia
  6. cail
  7. cailcedra
  8. cailcedras
  9. caillach
  10. caillachs
  11. Caillard

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cail (page history and authors); Cail (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.

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