🚀 Gained advantage 🧥 Back parts of coat

coattails

4.7

The long back parts of a coat that hang down behind

noun
/ˈkoʊtˌteɪlz/

: colas

He wore a tuxedo with long coattails to the formal evening event.

Examples

The dancer's coattails swirled dramatically as he spun across the stage.
The butler made sure the gentleman's coattails did not touch the muddy ground.
The coattails of his jacket fluttered in the wind.
She stepped on the coattails of his coat accidentally.
He wore a tuxedo with long coattails to the formal evening event.
The dancer's coattails swirled dramatically as he spun across the stage.
The butler made sure the gentleman's coattails did not touch the muddy ground.

Synonyms

coattail

vscoattails

20 7.6

A loose back flap of a formal coat that hangs below the waist

is the plural form referring to the same long rear parts of a coat

Idioms

on one's coattails

Informal

1 7.4

Gain an advantage from someone else's success without doing much work

on the coattails of

7.1

Getting success because someone more successful already did the work

on the coattails

7.7

Get success without earning it because someone more famous helped you

Compounds

coattails effect

Specialized

1 8.4

A popular candidate helps other candidates from the same party win votes

Surface Forms

coattails plural

Morphology

coattails = coattail (transparent) = coat + tail + s

The meaning is the literal combination of 'coat' and 'tail' and the plural marker is regular.

Etymology

The word coattails for the clothing part comes from the parts coat and tails, which are the long pieces that hang down at the back of a coat. So coattails simply names those back flaps of a coat.