the.com/entail
The logical leash: if the premise is true, the conclusion has no choice but to follow.
means To make something an unavoidable consequence, or — in law — to restrict an inheritance so it must pass down a fixed line of heirs.
from From Old French 'tailler' meaning 'to cut,' the same root that gives us 'tailor.' To 'entail' an estate was literally to cut it into a fixed shape, carving the inheritance so it could only pass along a specified line of heirs, no exceptions, no deviations. The legal sense came first; the broader meaning — one thing cutting off all other possible outcomes, leaving only one logical consequence — grew from that same image of a shape fixed by the cut.
- legal cousin
- old English law used it to lock down inheritance, no exceptions
- not imply
- imply is a suggestion, entail is a guarantee
- logic currency
- philosophers use it to mean necessary, not merely likely
- everyday misuse
- people say it for consequences, meaning just required