tailgate

noun

1. A hinged board or hatch at the rear of a vehicle that can be lowered for loading and unloading.

   “Drop the tailgate, please, and I'll load these pallets.”

   “When they first attached tailgates to cars, we were hooked. By the 1970s, wagons with names like Vista Cruiser and Town & Country sported tailgates as big as dining tables.”

2. (British, especially)The hinged rear door of a hatchback.

   “Open up the tailgate, please, and retrieve her suitcases.”

3. The downstream gate in the lock on a canal or river, or in an irrigation system.

   “The locktender closed the tailgate and the chamber started to fill.”

4. (US, abbreviation, alt-of, ellipsis)Ellipsis of tailgate party.

   “Are you coming to the tailgate? We'll be grilling brisket.”

   ““You don’t want to be at a tailgate having fish and chips,” said Elanja O’Toole, who wore a San Diego Chargers jersey while her husband, Llian O’Toole, wore a St. Louis Rams jersey and face paint.”

   “The website was created by Harry St. John, a former college athlete who wanted to take the agony out of managing tailgates.”

5. A tunnel for drawing spent air away from the working face of a mine.

verb

1. (intransitive, transitive)To drive dangerously close behind another vehicle.

   “That idiot has been tailgating me for the last five minutes.”

   “She also tailgated them at high speed in her convertible yellow Mercedes.”

   “Last week the UK government announced a crackdown on unsafe driving. From now on, those of us spotted tailgating or lane hogging will face on-the-spot fines of £100 and three penalty points.”

2. To follow another person through access control on their access, rather than on one’s own credentials, especially when entering a door controlled by a card reader.

   “An email circulated to ABC employees says Gallagher is believed to have tailgated staff walking through the building’s high-security doors.”

3. To privately purchase or sell a security immediately after trading in the same security for a client.
4. (US, intransitive)To have a tailgate party.

   “The point, Goldstein discovered through a lot of long days hanging out in parking lots, is that tailgating — the gustatory madness, the multigenerational camaraderie, the decked-out vans — is as essential a part of football as the game itself.”

name

1. Synonym of Monicagate.