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Glite Dictionary
🔗 To involve 🏰 To limit inheritance 🏰 Inheritance rule
to entail

to entail

1 9.5
To limit who can inherit property so it stays in one family
  • verb
  • /ɪnˈteɪl/
  • Formal
translation icon : constituir un mayorazgo
  • The court ruled that the land would be entailed to the designated heirs, restricting its ownership to them.
  • entailed estates
  • entailed property

Examples

  • The law says that this ranch will be entailed to his closest male heir.

    The Ballad of Lefty Brown (2017)

  • As he had no sons, the title and the estate were entailed upon a cousin of his, whom I had met twice and whom I disliked intensely.

    Fiction book (1998)

  • "Hang it in our living room and entail it jointly to Meredith and Richard," Charlie said.

    Fiction book (2001)

  • It is the hardest thing in the world, that your estate should be entailed away from your children.

    Pride and Prejudice (2003)

  • The will stated that the property would be entailed to his youngest son, preventing any sale or transfer.

  • According to the legal documents, the estate is entailed for generations to ensure it remains within the family.

Surface Forms

entail infinitive
entailed past
entailed past participle
entailing present participle
entails third person singular

Etymology

Entail comes from the old French entailer meaning 'to cut', the same idea behind tailor who cuts cloth. That's why to entail property is to 'cut out' who can inherit, making the estate pass only to certain heirs.