# curly

Pronunciation: say "KUR-lee" US /ˈkɝli/, UK /ˈkɜːli/

## Adjective

1. Having curls; forming a coiled or wavy shape rather than lying straight.
   - Simple: Shaped in curls or waves, not straight.
   - _His beard had grown long and curly over the winter._
   - _The vine sent out curly tendrils that gripped the fence._
3. Of quotation marks or apostrophes, curving in a direction rather than standing straight.
   - Simple: Of quotation marks or apostrophes, shaped with a curve instead of straight up and down.
   - _Professional typesetters prefer curly quotation marks for a more polished page._
   - _Her word processor automatically converted the straight apostrophe into a curly one._
4. Complicated and difficult to deal with; thorny or knotty. *(Australia)*
   - Simple: Hard to solve because it is complicated and full of problems.
   - _The committee spent all afternoon untangling one particularly curly clause in the contract._
   - _That's a curly question, and there's no easy answer to it._

## Noun

2. A person or animal having curly hair.
   - Simple: A person or animal that has curly hair.
   - _Grandpa always called me his little curly because of my ringlets._
   - _Among the show poodles, the judges favored a fluffy curly from the next county._

## Origin

Formed from "curl" combined with the suffix "-y".

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/curly (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).