curtain
Definition from Wiktionary, the free dictionary
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English[edit]
Etymology[edit]
From Old French cortine, from Latin cortina.
Pronunciation[edit]
- enPR: kû(r)'tən, IPA: /ˈkɜː(r)tən/, X-SAMPA: /"k3:(r)t@n/
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Audio (US) (file) -
Audio (UK) (file) - Rhymes: -ɜː(r)tən
Noun[edit]
curtain (plural curtains)
- A piece of cloth covering a window to keep the sun from shining inside.
- A similar piece of cloth that separates the audience and the stage in a theater.
- 1905, Baroness Emmuska Orczy, chapter 2, The Lisson Grove Mystery[1]:
- “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. […]”
- 1905, Baroness Emmuska Orczy, chapter 2, The Lisson Grove Mystery[1]:
- (fortifications) The flat area of wall which connects two bastions or towers; the main area of a fortified wall.
- 1603, John Florio, translating Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Folio Society 2006, vol. 1, p. 220:
- Captain Rense, beleagring the Citie of Errona for us, [...] caused a forcible mine to be wrought under a great curtine of the walles [...].
- 1603, John Florio, translating Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Folio Society 2006, vol. 1, p. 220:
- (euphemistic, also "final curtain") death
- 1979, Monty Python, Always Look on the Bright Side of Life
- For life is quite absurd
- And death's the final word
- You must always face the curtain with a bow.
- 1979, Monty Python, Always Look on the Bright Side of Life
Related terms[edit]
Translations[edit]
piece of cloth covering a window
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piece of cloth in a theater
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Verb[edit]
curtain (third-person singular simple present curtains, present participle curtaining, simple past and past participle curtained)
- To cover (a window) with a curtain; to hang curtains.
Translations[edit]
to cover with a curtain
