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Curl   /kərl/   Listen
noun
Curl  n.  
1.
A ringlet, especially of hair; anything of a spiral or winding form. "Under a coronet, his flowing hair In curls on either cheek played."
2.
An undulating or waving line or streak in any substance, as wood, glass, etc.; flexure; sinuosity. "If the glass of the prisms... be without those numberless waves or curls which usually arise from the sand holes."
3.
A disease in potatoes, in which the leaves, at their first appearance, seem curled and shrunken.
Blue curls. (Bot.) See under Blue.


verb
Curl  v. t.  (past & past part. curled; pres. part. curling)  
1.
To twist or form into ringlets; to crisp, as the hair. "But curl their locks with bodkins and with braid."
2.
To twist or make onto coils, as a serpent's body. "Of his tortuous train, Curled many a wanton wreath in sight of Eve."
3.
To deck with, or as with, curls; to ornament. "Thicker than the snaky locks That curledMegaera." "Curling with metaphors a plain intention."
4.
To raise in waves or undulations; to ripple. "Seas would be pools without the brushing air To curl the waves."
5.
(Hat Making) To shape (the brim) into a curve.


Curl  v. i.  
1.
To contract or bend into curls or ringlets, as hair; to grow in curls or spirals, as a vine; to be crinkled or contorted; to have a curly appearance; as, leaves lie curled on the ground. "Thou seest it (hair) will not curl by nature."
2.
To move in curves, spirals, or undulations; to contract in curving outlines; to bend in a curved form; to make a curl or curls. "Cirling billows." "Then round her slender waist he curled." "Curling smokes from village tops are seen." "Gayly curl the waves before each dashing prow." "He smiled a king of sickly smile, and curled up on the floor."
3.
To play at the game called curling. (Scot.)





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Curl" Quotes from Famous Books



... damp," argued Horace, with increasing confidence. He grew very bold. He seized upon one of her little white hands. "I won't believe it unless I can feel for myself that your hands are not cold," said he. He felt the little soft fingers curl around his hand with the involuntary, pristine force of a baby's. ...
— The Shoulders of Atlas - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... beautiful young woman. Her gray-blue gown is cut in a stiff, long-waisted style of the eighteenth century, yet still showing the slim grace of the maiden. The head is daintily poised. A red rose is in her hair and one dark curl falls across a white shoulder. Her face is oval and delicately tinted. She follows you with her soft, brown eyes, and her lips have ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
... well at first to cut up one sheet into several slips to use as test-strips. If any difficulty is found in determining which is the sensitive side, it will be well to throw a piece of the paper on a plane surface when it will be seen that it has a slight tendency to curl. The concave is the sensitive side. Taking a standard negative we first take one of the test-slips and place it upon the negative so that it covers a portion containing both high lights and shadows. With an oil-lamp having a 1-inch burner, expose ...
— Bromide Printing and Enlarging • John A. Tennant
... and I can find my affinity, I shall settle down in this beautiful country for life. But I am not thinking much about that just now, for the girls are not much in love with the Union soldiers. The ladies here wear secesh cockades in their bonnets and it is really amusing to see the curl of the lip and the contempt of countenance with which they sweep by us. Of course it is no wonder, when we take into consideration the way they have always lived, and thought that they were fighting for ...
— The Twenty-fifth Regiment Connecticut Volunteers in the War of the Rebellion • George P. Bissell
... go like that, anyhow," said Mr Evans, who, for a responsible head clerk of a big business, was the most flippant person I had ever met; "look at his hair—all out of curl! Come here, little girl, and be ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed


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