Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Having been shortened; abbreviated.
  • adjective Astronomy Of or relating to the orbital path of a solar system body when projected onto the ecliptic plane.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Shortened; reduced.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective (Astron.) Shortened or reduced; -- said of the distance of a planet from the sun or earth, as measured in the plane of the ecliptic, or the distance from the sun or earth to that point where a perpendicular, let fall from the planet upon the plane of the ecliptic, meets the ecliptic.
  • adjective (Math.) See Cycloid.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective shortened, having been shortened

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin curtātus, past participle of curtāre, to shorten, from curtus, cut short; see curt.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Latin curtatus, past participle of curtare ("to shorten").

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Examples

  • The word "decurtate" - means to cut short but in English lang "curtate" itself means "to cut short" and "de" is a pref. to make the following words as opposite or to make it degrade/declass.

    languagehat.com: BEAT THE JUDGE. 2004

  • But if you mark a point B on the circumference of the flange of a locomotive-wheel, the curve will be a curtate cycloid, as in Fig. 2, terminating in nodes.

    Amusements in Mathematics Henry Ernest Dudeney 1893

  • Dr. Wollaston had made a drawing of the orbit and its elements; but, having left it in town, he described the lines so accurately without naming them, that I remarked at once, "That is the curtate or perihelion distance," which pleased him greatly, as it showed how accurate his description was.

    Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville Mary Somerville 1826

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