reverse vs tail end

reverse

noun
  • The side of something facing away from a viewer, or from what is considered the front; the other side. 

  • The act of going backwards; a reversal. 

  • A thrust in fencing made with a backward turn of the hand; a backhanded stroke. 

  • The opposite of something. 

  • The gear setting of an automobile that makes it travel backwards. 

  • The tails side of a coin, or the side of a medal or badge that is opposite the obverse. 

  • A turn or fold made in bandaging, by which the direction of the bandage is changed. 

  • A piece of misfortune; a setback. 

verb
  • To transpose the positions of two things. 

  • To engage reverse thrust on (an engine). 

  • To cause a mechanism or a vehicle to operate or move in the opposite direction to normal. 

  • To turn something around so that it faces the opposite direction or runs in the opposite sequence. 

  • To revoke a law, or to change a decision into its opposite. 

  • To change totally; to alter to the opposite. 

  • To place (a set of points) in the reverse position. 

  • To change the direction of a reaction such that the products become the reactants and vice-versa. 

  • To move from the normal position to the reverse position. 

  • To overthrow; to subvert. 

  • To turn something inside out or upside down. 

adj
  • Pertaining to engines, vehicle movement etc. moving in a direction opposite to the usual direction. 

  • Turned upside down; greatly disturbed. 

  • In which cDNA synthetization is obtained from an RNA template. 

  • Reversed. 

  • Opposite, contrary; going in the opposite direction. 

  • To be in the non-default position; to be set for the lesser-used route. 

tail end

noun
  • The hindmost part of anything (a person, animal, or object), the rear end; the butt, buttocks; hindquarters, rump. 

  • The last part of a period of time, event, or situation; the concluding or final part. 

How often have the words reverse and tail end occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )