curl

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English curlen,^[2][3][4] a form with the r and the vowel transposed (a metathesis) of crullen, also crollen,^[2][4][5][6] from the adjective crul (“curly”), also crol and crulle.^[7][2][8] The OED notes that the early instances are of the past participle, found in the 14th century as crolled and crulled, and calls the origin uncertain.^[9][10] Ayto, Hoad and the Oxford Dictionary of English take the adjective as borrowed from Middle Dutch krul (“curly”),^[6][11][12] and Merriam-Webster and the American Heritage Dictionary think it probably Middle Dutch or perhaps Middle Low German;^[3][4] Barnhart thinks it probably developed from an unrecorded Old English word, and Etymonline gives both views.^[2][8] The Middle Dutch word is from Proto-Germanic *kruzlǭ (“bent or crooked object, curl”),^[8][6][13] also the source of East Frisian Low German krull (“lock of hair”), Middle High German krol, Norwegian krull and Danish krølle (“curl”),^[8][2][5] and is related to krūs, modern German kraus (“curly”).^[6][2][11] Barnhart traces the set to Proto-Indo-European *grus-lo-.^[2] Through modern Dutch krul, the same word gave English cruller.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The adjective crul, curly, of hair, is recorded from about 1300,^[8][2][7] and Chaucer's squire in the Canterbury Tales has "lokkes crulle as they were leyd in presse".^[14][7] The verb, to bend or twist hair into ringlets, is first recorded in 1447, in O. Bokenham's Lyvys of Seyntys,^[9] and Barnhart finds curlen in the Promptorium Parvulorum in 1440 and crollen about 1380.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The verb began with hair and spread to anything bent or coiled into a spiral (from 1562), to the intransitive "form curls", first of hair (1530),^[9][8] and to the curling of the lip in contempt, from 1816 in W. Scott.^[9] The noun, a ringlet of hair, follows the verb: the OED's first quotation is from Shakespeare's Hamlet (1604; 1602 in Barnhart),^[9][2][8] although Merriam-Webster gives 1578.^[3] By the 1610s it was used of anything of a similar spiral or wavy form.^[8][9] Technical senses followed: an eddy in a stream for anglers (1766), a disease of potatoes in which the shoots curl up (1790), the mathematical curl of a vector, from J. C. Maxwell (1873), a body exercise (1944) and in surfing the curved top of a breaking wave (1962).^[9][8] The game of curling, recorded from 1620, is named after the curving path of the stones, according to Weekley,^[2][14] and the verb "to play at curling" is from 1715, in Scotland.^[8][15] In northern English and Scottish dialect a curl-doddy was the blue scabious or a fir cone, among other things.^[15]

Timeline

• c. 1300 – Middle English crul, curly.^[8][7]
• c. 1380 – crollen, to curl.^[2]
• 1440 – curlen, in the Promptorium Parvulorum.^[2]
• 1447 – to twist hair into ringlets.^[9]
• 1530 – intransitive, of hair, to form curls.^[9][8]
• 1562 – to bend or coil into a spiral.^[9]
• 1604 – noun, a ringlet of hair.^[9]
• c. 1615 – noun, anything of a spiral or wavy form.^[9][8]
• 1620 – curling, the game on ice.^[2]
• 1715 – to play at curling.^[8][15]
• 1766 – an eddy in a stream.^[9]
• 1790 – a disease of potatoes and other plants.^[9]
• 1816 – to curl the lip.^[9]
• 1873 – in mathematics, the curl of a vector.^[9]
• 1944 – an exercise of contracting a muscle.^[9]
• 1962 – in surfing, the curved top of a breaking wave.^[9][8]

Meanings

Verb

1. To twist or form something, especially hair, into coils or ringlets.^[16][3][9]
2. Of hair, to grow in curls.^[16][9]
3. To bend into a curved or spiral shape, or to become so shaped; to coil, often with up: The pages curled in the damp.^[16][3][9]
4. To move in a curving or twisting way, as smoke does.^[16][9]
5. To play the game of curling.^[16][15]
6. curl one's lip: to raise one corner of the lip as a sign of contempt.^[16][9][3]

Noun

1. A lock of hair that coils; a ringlet.^[3][16][9]
2. Something of a curled or coiled shape, such as a shaving of wood; a spiral.^[3][16][9]
3. The state of being curled: hair that will not stay in curl.^[3][9]
4. An eddy in a stream.^[3][9]
5. A plant disease in which the leaves curl up, as in potatoes.^[3][9]
6. (mathematics) A vector operator that measures the rotation of a field.^[9]
7. An exercise in which a muscle is contracted and released repeatedly, as in lifting a weight.^[9]

Word family

• curledness
• curlpaper
• curlicue
• curly
• curler
• curling
• uncurl

Related words

• cruller
• querl

Usage notes

The OED also records a short-lived, imitative verb curl, to purr like a cat, in about 1533.^[9]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
6. ^ a b c d e Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
7. ^ a b c d Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
14. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
15. ^ a b c d Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
16. ^ a b c d e f g h Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins