curl
/kɜɹl/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 3.52 in modern English
6
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A spin making the trajectory of an object curve.
noun
Movement of a moving rock away from a straight line.
noun
Any exercise performed by bending the arm, wrist, or leg on the exertion against resistance, especially those that train the biceps.
noun
The vector field denoting the rotationality of a given vector field.
Example Sentences
- "My hair doesn't have much curl."
- "[…]she took it down, looked long and fondly at it, then, shaking her curls about her face, as if to hide the act, pressed it to her lips and seemed to weep over it in an uncontrollable paroxysm of tender grief."
- "Serene, smiling, enigmatic, she faced him with no fear whatever showing in her dark eyes.[…]She put back a truant curl from her forehead where it had sought egress to the world, and looked him full in the face now, drawing a deep breath which caused the round of her bosom to lift the lace at her throat."
- "The face which emerged was not reassuring.[…]. He was not a mongol but there was a deficiency of a sort there, and it was not made more pretty by a latter-day hair cut which involved eccentrically long elf-locks and oiled black curls."
- "[…] the backs of their necks and their forelegs are decorated with curls and their necks and bodies are covered with fine, undulating lines."
- "It is possible to use the wind which blows from the left to the right by playing well into the wind with the slightest bit of curl on the ball[…]"
Etymology
From metathesis of Middle English crulle (“curled, curly”), of uncertain origin but probably from an unrecorded Old English word or from Middle Dutch crul, crulle (“curl”), ultimately from Proto-Germanic *kruzlǭ (“bent or crooked object, curl”), connected to *krūsą (“curl”), of unknown origin. Cognate with Saterland Frisian Krulle (“curl, lock”), West Frisian krul (“curl”), Dutch krul (“curl”), German Low German Krull (“curl”), dialectal German Krolle (“curl”), Danish krølle (“curl”), Norwegian Bokmål krøll (“curl”). Related also to Saterland Frisian Kruus (“curl”), German kraus (“frizzy, crumpled, curly”), Danish krus (“curl”), Swedish krusa (“to crimp, curl”). Compare also Gothic 𐌺𐍂𐌹𐌿𐍃𐍄𐌰𐌽 (kriustan, “to grind, crush, gnash”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: crulle, crul, *kruzlǭ, -
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /kɜɹl/
- British English: /kɜːl/