curtain
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈkɜːtn̩/
ipa: /ˈkɜɹt(ə)n/
ipa: [ˈkʰɜɹʔn̩]
homophone: Kirton
rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)tən
Forms: form: curtains
Etymology: Inherited from Middle English curtine, from Old French cortine, from Late Latin cōrtīna (“curtain”), a calque from Ancient Greek.
Senses: examples: text: He drew the curtains at 11:00pm before falling asleep.
text: Thus the red damask curtains which now shut out the fog-laden, drizzling atmosphere of the Marylebone Road, had cost a mere song, and yet they might have been warranted to last another thirty years. A great bargain also had been the excellent Axminster carpet which covered the floor; as, again, the arm-chair in which Bunting now sat forward, staring into the dull, small fire.
ref: 1913, Mrs. [Marie] Belloc Lowndes, chapter I, in The Lodger, London: Methuen, →OCLC; republished in Novels of Mystery: The Lodger; The Story of Ivy; What Really Happened, New York, N.Y.: Longmans, Green and Co., […], [1933], →OCLC, page 0016:
text: It is realised that the old Pullman standard sleeper, with its convertible "sections", each containing upper and lower berths, and with no greater privacy at night than the curtains drawn along both sides of a middle aisle, has had its day.
ref: 1944 November and December, “"Duplex Roomette" Sleeping Cars”, in Railway Magazine, page 324:
glosses: A piece of cloth covering a window, bed, etc. to offer privacy and keep out light.
examples: text: “H'm !” he said, “so, so—it is a tragedy in a prologue and three acts. I am going down this afternoon to see the curtain fall for the third time on what[…]will prove a good burlesque ; but it all began dramatically enough. It was last Saturday[…]that two boys, playing in the little spinney just outside Wembley Park Station, came across three large parcels done up in American cloth.[…]”
ref: 1904–1905, Baroness Orczy [i.e., Emma Orczy], “The Lisson Grove Mystery”, in The Case of Miss Elliott, London: T[homas] Fisher Unwin, published 1905, →OCLC; republished as popular edition, London: Greening & Co., 1909, OCLC 11192831, quoted in The Case of Miss Elliott (ebook no. 2000141h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg of Australia, February 2020:
glosses: A similar piece of cloth that separates the audience and the stage in a theater.
examples: text: He took so long to shave his head that we arrived 45 minutes after curtain and were denied late entry.
topics: entertainment
lifestyle
theater
glosses: The beginning of a show; the moment the curtain rises.
examples: text: Captain Rense, beleagring the Citie of Errona for us, […] caused a forcible mine to be wrought under a great curtine of the walles […].
ref: , Folio Society, 2006, vol.1, p.220
topics: fortifications
government
military
politics
war
glosses: The flat area of wall which connects two bastions or towers; the main area of a fortified wall.
examples: text: For life is quite absurd / And death's the final word / You must always face the curtain with a bow.
ref: 1979, Monty Python, Always Look on the Bright Side of Life:
qualifier: also "final curtain"
glosses: Death.
topics: architecture
glosses: That part of a wall of a building which is between two pavilions, towers, etc.
examples: text: Their ragged curtains poorly are let loose
ref: 1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene ii]:
glosses: A flag; an ensign.
glosses: The uninterrupted stream of fluid that falls onto a moving substrate in the process of curtain coating.
Derived terms: act curtain
air curtain
bamboo curtain
bedcurtain
beef curtains
behind the curtain
blackout curtain
bring down the curtain
bring the curtain down
cafe curtains
chin curtain
curtain array
curtain bangs
curtain call
curtain coating
curtainfic
curtain lecture
curtainless
curtainlike
curtain off
curtain-raise
curtain raiser
curtain-raiser
curtain ring
curtain rod
curtain-sider
curtainsider
curtain time
curtain twitcher
curtain-twitcher
curtain wall
curtainwall
curtainwise
draw the curtains
drop curtain
encurtain
final curtain
fortification curtain
front curtain
front-of-house curtain
green curtain
house curtain
incurtain
iron curtain
lace curtain
lace-curtain
main curtain
meat curtains
net curtain
olio curtain
precurtain
proscenium curtain
pull down the curtain
recurtain
ring down the curtain
ring up the curtain
roast beef curtains
safety curtain
shower curtain
silicon curtain
tableau curtain
the curtain falls
the curtains match the drapes
uncurtain
Zion curtain