tailgate
1the board or gate at the back of a wagon, truck, station wagon, etc., which can be removed or let down for convenience in loading or unloading.
to follow or drive hazardously close to the rear of another vehicle.
to follow or drive hazardously close to the rear of (another vehicle).
pertaining to or set up on a tailgate: a tailgate picnic before the football game.
Origin of tailgate
1Other definitions for tailgate (2 of 2)
a style of playing the trombone, especially in Dixieland jazz, distinguished especially by the use of melodic counterpoint and long glissandi.
Origin of tailgate
2Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use tailgate in a sentence
The end gate of a prairie schooner was lost on a hill, and Tail Gate mountain came into being.
Down the Mother Lode | Vivia HemphillWhy don't you get the tail gate of the bed wagon and use that?
Jack the Young Cowboy | George Bird GrinnellMaybe Frank will lend us the tail gate of his wagon to put over it.
Jack the Young Cowboy | George Bird GrinnellAnd now, at the tail gate of every wagon, lashed fast for its last long journey, hung also the family plow.
The Covered Wagon | Emerson HoughThe cook, on being appealed to, declined to lend the tail gate of the cook wagon.
Jack the Young Cowboy | George Bird Grinnell
British Dictionary definitions for tailgate (1 of 2)
/ (ˈteɪlˌɡeɪt) /
another name for tailboard
a door at the rear of a hatchback vehicle
to drive very close behind (a vehicle)
Derived forms of tailgate
- tailgater, noun
British Dictionary definitions for tail gate (2 of 2)
a gate that is used to control the flow of water at the lower end of a lock: Compare head gate
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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