curtain
Part of speech: noun
verb
Morphological type: simple
Topics: architecture
entertainment
fortifications
government
lifestyle
military
politics
theater
war
Etymology: Inherited from Middle English curtine, from Old French cortine, from Late Latin cōrtīna (“curtain”), a calque from Ancient Greek.
Inflected forms:
form: curtains
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: curtains
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: curtaining
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: curtained
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: curtained
pos: verb
tags: past
Senses:
gloss: A piece of cloth covering a window, bed, etc. to offer privacy and keep out light.
pos: noun
examples: He drew the curtains at 11:00pm before falling asleep.
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.
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.
gloss: A similar piece of cloth that separates the audience and the stage in a theater.
pos: noun
examples: “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.[…]”
gloss: The beginning of a show; the moment the curtain rises.
pos: noun
tags: broadly
examples: He took so long to shave his head that we arrived 45 minutes after curtain and were denied late entry.
gloss: The flat area of wall which connects two bastions or towers; the main area of a fortified wall.
pos: noun
examples: Captain Rense, beleagring the Citie of Errona for us, […] caused a forcible mine to be wrought under a great curtine of the walles […].
gloss: Death, final curtain.
pos: noun
tags: euphemistic
in-plural
sometimes
examples: For life is quite absurd / And death's the final word / You must always face the curtain with a bow.
gloss: That part of a wall of a building which is between two pavilions, towers, etc.
pos: noun
gloss: A flag; an ensign.
pos: noun
tags: derogatory
obsolete
examples: Their ragged curtains poorly are let loose
gloss: The uninterrupted stream of fluid that falls onto a moving substrate in the process of curtain coating.
pos: noun
gloss: To cover (a window) with a curtain; to hang curtains.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: In a large bedroom upstairs, the window of which was thickly curtained with a great woollen shawl lately discarded by the landlady, Mrs. Rolliver, were gathered on this evening nearly a dozen persons, all seeking vinous bliss; all old inhabitants of the nearer end of Marlott, and frequenters of this retreat.
The window, softly curtained with dotted swiss, became the focus of my desperate hour-by-hour attention.
gloss: To hide, cover or separate as if by a curtain.
pos: verb
tags: figuratively
transitive
examples: And, after conflict such as was supposed / The wandering prince and Dido once enjoy'd, / When with a happy storm they were surprised / And curtain'd with a counsel-keeping cave, / We may, each wreathed in the other's arms, / Our pastimes done, possess a golden slumber;
But poetry in a more restricted sense expresses those arrangements of language, and especially metrical language, which are created by that imperial faculty; whose throne is curtained within the invisible nature of man.
He saw a rock that pierced the shifting waters / As they stilled, now curtained by the riding / Of the waves, and leaped to safety on it.
But bleakness still curtained the gray horizon.
Synonyms: becurtain
Related words: blind
drape
Derived words: 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
curtainwall
curtain wall
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 back the 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
Translations: