curtain

Pluralcurtains

Formscurtains, curtaining, curtained

1. 1
   nouncountable

   A piece of cloth that hangs over a window, bed, or similar opening to give privacy and keep out light.

   He drew the curtain shut to keep the bedroom dark.

   Heavy velvet curtains framed the tall windows of the parlor.

   Similardrape, drapery

   Note

   The household cloth at the root of the word: Middle English curtine, from Old French cortine and Late Latin cōrtīna, itself a calque from Greek. Its usual verb is draw, as in drawing the curtains before bed, and a window's covering is often spoken of in the plural. In Marie Belloc Lowndes's The Lodger (1913), red damask curtains shut out the fog of the Marylebone Road.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A large piece of cloth that hangs between the audience and the stage in a theater, raised and lowered between scenes.

   The heavy red curtain swept up to reveal the set.

   When the curtains parted, the orchestra fell silent.

   Note

   The stage cloth supplies the theater's own shorthand, and its rise and fall became ways of saying when a show starts and ends. In Baroness Orczy's The Case of Miss Elliott, a character plans to "see the curtain fall for the third time" on a play in three acts, so the curtain counts the acts. The rise gives curtain as starting time, and the fall gives the euphemism for death.

3. 3
   verbfigurativelytransitive

   To hide, cover, or separate something as if with a curtain.

   Thick hedges curtain the garden from prying eyes.

   Mist curtained the mountains, hiding them completely.

   Similarscreen, veil, shroud, conceal

   Oppositereveal, expose

   Note

   A literary verb more than an everyday one, and an old one: Shakespeare's lovers in Titus Andronicus are "curtain'd with a counsel-keeping cave." It often appears as a participle (curtained by the waves), and its subjects tend to be water, weather or mood closing over a view, as when bleakness curtains a horizon. Unlike the window-dressing verb, nothing is hung here; the curtain is only a likeness.

4. 4
   verbtransitive

   To cover a window with hanging cloth, or to hang cloths over windows for privacy or shade.

   We curtain the front windows to block the afternoon glare.

   The decorator curtained every room in heavy damask.

   Similardrape

   Note

   Most often met as a past participle that describes a window and what covers it: curtained with plus the material. Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891) has a window "thickly curtained with a great woollen shawl," and Carol Shields has one "softly curtained with dotted swiss." An adverb of manner, such as thickly or softly, is the natural companion.

5. 5
   noununcountable

   The beginning of a performance: the moment the stage curtain rises.

   Curtain is at half past seven, and latecomers wait in the lobby.

   The cast gathered backstage ten minutes before curtain.

   Note

   Theater people use it like a clock time, with no article: after curtain, ten minutes before curtain, curtain is at half past seven. The bare form is the signal. With an article, the word goes back to meaning the stage cloth itself. Arriving after curtain has real consequences, since latecomers may be held in the lobby or turned away altogether.

6. 6
   nouneuphemisticcountableplural

   Death, or the final end of something, imagined as a curtain coming down at the close of a show.

   The hero faces the final curtain in the last act of the tragedy.

   One more mistake and it's curtains for the whole project.

   Similarend, death

   Note

   A euphemism that keeps its stage picture. The fuller phrase is the final curtain. The plural appears in the casual idiom it's curtains for someone, where ruin can be meant as much as death. Monty Python's "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" (1979) keeps the theatrical image whole, urging the listener to meet that last curtain with a performer's courtesy.

7. 7
   nouncountable

   The section of an external wall that runs between two pavilions, towers, or projecting parts of a building.

   The curtain linking the corner pavilions was pierced by tall windows.

   Restorers repaired the crumbling curtains between the gatehouse towers.

   Similarwall

   Note

   On a building rather than a fortress, the word names a position in the design, the plain run of wall between pavilions or towers. On a facade it usually reads as the quieter, recessed plane, while the projecting parts do the display. Unlike the fortified wall, it carries no defensive sense.

8. 8
   nouncountable

   The flat stretch of fortified wall connecting two bastions or towers; the main body of a defensive wall.

   The defenders lined the curtain between the bastions with archers.

   Engineers reinforced the curtains where the old fortress walls had cracked.

   Similarwall, rampart

   Note

   A military engineer's word for the stretch of rampart between two bastions or towers. It is the face an attacker meets, and the bastions at each end are built to cover it with flanking fire. The older spelling, curtine, keeps the shape of the Middle English word, as in "a great curtine of the walles" with a mine dug beneath it.

9. 9
   nouncountable

   In curtain coating, the continuous falling sheet of liquid that lands on a moving substrate.

   Operators adjusted the flow until the curtain fell evenly across the web.

   A stable curtain produces a smooth, defect-free coating layer.

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