1
a
: a bobbed tail
b
: a horse, dog, or cat with a bobbed or very short tail
especially
: old english sheepdog
2
: something curtailed
Examples of bobtail in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
Tate, 27, was spending time with her 13-week-old bobtail kitten, Midas, who is usually a blur of motion and mischief from dawn till dusk.
—
Alice Gibbs, MSNBC Newsweek, 23 June 2025
The adaptive, color-changing skin of chameleons and bobtail squid is biologically complex.
—IEEE Spectrum, 26 Feb. 2010
The most vocal breeds include Siamese, Oriental, Balinese, Bengal, American bobtail, Siberian, Turkish Van, Ocicat, Peterbald, and Turkish Angora.
—Benedict Cosgrove, Newsweek, 19 Dec. 2024
And the bobtail squid, which diverged from the California two-spot octopus between 350 million and 250 million years ago, had a chromosome that was an outlier in having more transposable elements than its other chromosomes—possibly the same Z chromosome as the octopus.
—Viviane Callier, Scientific American, 3 Sep. 2024
See All Example Sentences for bobtail
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Alice Gibbs, MSNBC Newsweek, 23 June 2025
The adaptive, color-changing skin of chameleons and bobtail squid is biologically complex.
—IEEE Spectrum, 26 Feb. 2010
The most vocal breeds include Siamese, Oriental, Balinese, Bengal, American bobtail, Siberian, Turkish Van, Ocicat, Peterbald, and Turkish Angora.
—Benedict Cosgrove, Newsweek, 19 Dec. 2024
And the bobtail squid, which diverged from the California two-spot octopus between 350 million and 250 million years ago, had a chromosome that was an outlier in having more transposable elements than its other chromosomes—possibly the same Z chromosome as the octopus.
—Viviane Callier, Scientific American, 3 Sep. 2024
See All Example Sentences for bobtail
Cite this Entry
“Bobtail.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bobtail. Accessed 14 Jul. 2025.
Copy CitationKids Definition
bobtail
noun
bob·tail
-ˌtāl 
1
: a short or bobbed tail
2
: a horse, dog, or cat with a short or bobbed tail
bobtail
adjective
or bobtailed
-ˌtāld
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