Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- transitive verb To cut short or reduce: synonym: shorten.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A corruption of curtal. Compare curtail, v.
- To cut short; cut off the end or a part of; dock; diminish in extent or quantity: as, to
curtail words. - To deprive by excision or removal; abate by deprivation or negation: as, to
curtail one of part of his allowance, or of his proper title. - noun In architecture, a member shaped like a volute or scroll, especially in stair-building, as in the lower termination of a hand-rail or the projection of the lowest step of a flight. See
curtail-step .
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- transitive verb To cut off the end or tail, or any part, of; to shorten; to abridge; to diminish; to reduce.
- noun The scroll termination of any architectural member, as of a step, etc.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb obsolete To
cut short thetail of an animal - verb To
shorten orabridge the duration of something; totruncate . - verb figuratively To
limit orrestrict , keepin check . - noun architecture A
scroll termination , as of astep , etc.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- verb terminate or abbreviate before its intended or proper end or its full extent
- verb place restrictions on
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Booming M&A activity has helped to drive Australia's stock market to a record, but these changes may in the short term curtail that activity.
Australia's Plans 2007
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A poor African, behind the pulpit, who perhaps had seen pictures of the devil with a long tail and hoofs, misapprehended the meaning of the word curtail, and responded, "Amen! may it be cut right, smack, smooth, short off."
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I mean I am a seeker, so I worked really hard to kind of curtail those behaviors but I could not be in charge or in control of my behavior until I went on medicine.
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Freedom is not absolute, of course, but the worst atrocities in history have been carried out when authorities decided to "curtail" activities "in the interest of the common good."
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Tho 'curtail'd their ranks, 'tis their character due,
Military Economy 1808
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The DGS strongly suggested that I "curtail" my "public activities" because we live in a small community and it might affect my reputation.
Wired Campus 2010
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Time Warner Cable said it will "curtail" the use of the word "free" in advertising its HD service and stopped running ads claiming that AT
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"curtail" his Majesty's Wig "of its fair proportion;" yet I have sometimes been apt to think it rather improper, to make the Wig, as is usually done, of larger dimensions than the tree in which it and his
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King called for blacks to stop drinking and gambling and to curtail their desires for luxuries.
A Renegade History of the United States Thaddeus Russell 2010
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To more effectively curtail the real's rise, Brazil's government must exhibit much more fiscal discipline, economists say.
Brazil Scrambles for Long-Term Fix for Real's Strength Erin McCarthy 2011
mollusque commented on the word curtail
CUrTail
April 26, 2008
kingparton commented on the word curtail
I want to do only what I have it in my heart to do, and let others do the same; I do not ask anything of anybody; I do not want to curtail anybody's freedom. I want to be free myself.
Nikolai Chernyshevsky, "What Is to Be Done?"
July 27, 2011
ruzuzu commented on the word curtail
Also see curtal and curtol.
March 12, 2025