curtail

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English curtailen (“to restrict”),^[2][3] probably from Middle French courtault (“made short, docked”) altered or blended under the influence of taillen (“to cut”), itself from Old French tailler.^[3][4][5] The OED instead takes the 16th-century verb as a conversion of the adjective curtal,^[6] and Hoad, Ayto and the Oxford Dictionary of English likewise start from that word, used of a horse with a docked tail;^[7][8][9] Merriam-Webster calls the change of ending folk etymology.^[10] The French adjective is formed from court (“short”), Old French cort, and the pejorative suffix -ault, of Germanic origin.^[11][3] The base comes from Latin curtus (“cut off, shortened”),^[8][11] the source of curt,^[8][3] and goes back to Proto-Indo-European *sker- (“to cut”), which also gave short and shear.^[11][8] The noun for the scroll end of a stair or other member is probably from the same source by folk etymology as well.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

To restrict or limit the succession to the throne: a text of about 1471 from the reign of Edward IV says that the crown was curtaylet to hys issu male.^[2][3] The OED's own record starts later, in 1553, with the shortening of sentences and verses in T. Wilson's Arte of Rhetorique.^[6]

Semantic evolution

The sense "to shorten by cutting off a part" is recorded from 1553,^[3][6] and in the 1570s the word was used literally for docking a tail.^[6] The OED notes that from the 16th century the second syllable was associated with tail, and perhaps by some in the 17th and 18th centuries with French tailler (“to cut”), which produced the spelling curtail and the modern stress: Johnson still stressed the first syllable in 1773, while Walker gave the current pronunciation without qualification in 1791.^[6] From 1589 the verb extended from physical length to duration and amount,^[6][3] and this "reduce, restrict" sense is the main one today.^[12][4] Johnson (1755) already defines it as to cut off, cut short, or shorten, and notes that it takes of before the thing lost.^[13]

Timeline

• c. 1471 – to restrict or limit, of the succession to the throne.^[2][3]
• 1553 – to shorten by cutting off a part, of sentences, verses and lines.^[6][3]
• 1577 – to dock the tail of an animal (obsolete after 1611).^[6]
• 1581 – curtail of: to deprive someone of something.^[6]
• 1589 – to reduce in duration, extent or amount.^[6][3]
• 1794 – the derivative curtailment.^[3]
• 1797 – noun, the act of curtailing (now obsolete).^[6]

Meanings

Verb

1. To cut short or reduce, especially in duration or scope; to abridge: The storm forced the organisers to curtail the parade.^[12][10][4]
2. To shorten in length by cutting off a part.^[10][6]
3. curtail of: to deprive a person of something: curtail'd of this fair proportion (Shakespeare, Richard III).^[6][14][13]
4. (obsolete, 1577–1611) To dock the tail of an animal.^[6][14]

Noun

1. The scroll end of an architectural member, as of a step at the foot of a flight of stairs.^[10]

Word family

• curtailer
• curtailment
• curtailedly
• uncurtailed

Related words

• curt
• curtal
• short
• shear
• tailor

Usage notes

The link with tail has often been questioned.^[13][15] Johnson wrote that dogs with cut tails were called curtal dogs, so that the word "was vulgarly conceived to mean originally to cut the tail, and was in time written according to that notion".^[13] Skeat put it more flatly: "It has nothing to do with tail".^[15]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c 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)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c d Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
9. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
11. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
12. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
13. ^ a b c d Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
14. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
15. ^ a b Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press