1. The settlement of the succession of a landed estate, so that it cannot be bequeathed at pleasure by any one possessor; the rule of descent settled for any estate; the fixed or prescribed line of devolution. Also in phrases: To break, cut (off) the entail, Statute of entails, Entail male.
c. 1380. [see transferred use 2 a.].
1467. Bury Wills (1850), 47. I wylle that myn executors and myn feffeis see the best mene that they can in restoryng ageyn to the olde intaile of the seid place. Ibid., 50. Not conteynyd in myne dede of entayle.
1580. Powel, Lloyd’s Cambria, 138. To his heires male by an especial Entaile aforesaid.
1601. Shaks., All’s Well, IV. iii. 313. For a Cardceue he will … cut th’ intaile from all remainders.
1660. Burney, Κέρδ. Δῶρον (1661), 54. In passing of Fines and cutting of the Entails.
1712. Arbuthnot, John Bull (1755), 50. His sister Peg’s name being in the entail, he could not make a thorough settlement without her consent.
1742. Richardson, Pamela, III. 405. My father too … might have cut off the Intail.
1759. Robertson, Hist. Scot. (1802), I. I. 223. By introducing entails … to render their possessions unalienable and everlasting.
1796. Jane Austen, Pride & Prej. (1833), 268. This son was to join in cutting off the entail.
1839. Keightley, Hist. Eng., I. 252–3. The statute of entails … is also to be referred to this reign.
1876. Bancroft, Hist. U. S., III. iii. 341. Entails were not perpetual; land was always in the market.
2. transf. and fig. in various senses: a. The securing (an office, dignity, privilege) to a predetermined line of successors; a predetermined order of succession. b. The transmission, as an inalienable inheritance, of qualities, conditions, obligations, etc. c. Necessary sequence. d. concr. That which is entailed; a secured inheritance.
a. c. 1380. Wyclif, Wks. (1880), 391. Men supposen þis entaile [of tithes] was not expresly confermyd bi criste.
1555. Bradford, in Strype, Eccl. Mem., III. App. xlv. 131. Thoughe the Quene … disheryt the right heyres apparent, or breake her fathers intayle.
1622. Bacon, Hen. VII., 12. So as the Entaile might seeme rather a personall fauour to him, and his children, then a totall Dis-inherison to the House of Yorke.
1674. Stillingfl., Reform. Just., 41 (R.). How comes the entail to be made to all his [St. Peter’s] successors…?
1827. Hallam, Const. Hist. (1876), III. xv. 182. Harley … zealously supported the entail of the crown on the princess Sophia.
b. 1706. De Foe, Jure Div., VIII. 188. They’re Traytors else to the Entails of Sense.
1780. Burke, Œcon. Reform, Wks. 1842, I. 246. An intail of dependence is a bad reward of merit.
1866. J. Martineau, Ess., I. 218. The natural entail of disease and character.
1879. Geo. Eliot, Theo. Such, ii. 36. That entail of social ignorance.
c. 1662. Stillingfl., Orig. Sacr., II. vi. § 10. 193. If God by his immediate hand of providence did not cut off the entail of effects upon their natural causes.
a. 1848. R. W. Hamilton, Rew. & Punishm., ii. (1853), 82. The entail of vice upon the circumstances of the present life.
d. 1822. Byron, Werner, II. ii. 305. Ignorance And dull suspicion are a part of his Entail will last him longer than his lands.
† 3. pl. (See quot.; app. humorous use of phrase belonging to 1.)
1790. W. Marshall, Midl. Counties (E. D. S.), s.v., When the reapers come near to the finish, they cut off each other’s entails, or ends of the lands: the whole finish together.
