Word.ws English Dictionary

tailwise

tailwise adverb: in the direction of the tail; tail first.

Adverb

tailwise (not comparable)

  1. In the direction of the tail; tail first.
    • No serrature of abdominal outline, but bony scales present or dermo-hæmal processes under true scales as figured above, overlapping and having short end pointing tailwise from pectoral to anal fin.1883, Transactions and Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute, page 211
    • If the Soviet missile were toppled, would it still go off if it hit sidewise or tailwise?1982, United States. Congress. House. Committee on Armed Services, Research and development, Title II, page 1216

Origin of tailwise

From tail + -wise.

Questions about tailwise

What does tailwise mean?
Tailwise means in the direction of the tail; tail first.
What part of speech is tailwise?
Tailwise is an adverb.

Words near tailwise in the dictionary

  1. tailwhips
  2. tailwind
  3. tailwinded
  4. tailwinding
  5. tailwinds
  6. tailwise
  7. tailye
  8. tailyes
  9. tailzee
  10. tailzees
  11. tailzie

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tailwise (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: “tailwise.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/tailwise. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.