curve
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(Alternative pronunciation): IPA(key): /kʰœːf⁵⁵/
See also: curvé
English
Etymology
Attested since the 1690s, from Latin curvus (“bent, curved”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- (“to bend, curve, turn”) + *-wós. Doublet of curb, shrink, carcer, and cancer.
Pronunciation
- (Received Pronunciation, General Australian) IPA(key): /kɜːv/,
Audio (London) (file)
- (General American) IPA(key): /kɚv/,
Audio (US) (file)
- Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)v
Adjective
curve
Translations
crooked — see crooked
Noun
curve (plural curves)
- A gentle bend, such as in a road.
- You should slow down when approaching a curve.
- A simple figure containing no straight portions and no angles; a curved line.
- She scribbled a curve on the paper.
- A grading system based on the scale of performance of a group used to normalize a right-skewed grade distribution (with more lower scores) into a bell curve, so that more can receive higher grades, regardless of their actual knowledge of the subject.
- The teacher was nice and graded the test on a curve.
- (analytic geometry) A continuous map from a one-dimensional space to a multidimensional space.
- (geometry) A one-dimensional figure of non-zero length; the graph of a continuous map from a one-dimensional space.
- (algebraic geometry) An algebraic curve; a polynomial relation of the planar coordinates.
- (topology) A one-dimensional continuum.
- (informal, usually in the plural) The attractive shape of a woman's body.
Derived terms
terms derived from curve (noun)
- above the curve
- ahead of the curve
- algebraic curve
- Allen curve
- bathtub curve
- battleship curve
- battleship-shaped curve
- bean curve
- behind the curve
- bell curve
- bell curve god
- Bethe-Slater curve
- Beveridge curve
- Bézier curve
- blancmange curve
- blind curve
- caustic curve
- closed curve
- closed timelike curve
- cocked hat curve
- compound curve
- concentration-time curve
- contract curve
- cosine curve
- counter curve
- cubic curve
- curvaceous
- curveball
- curve-billed thrasher
- curve-billed tinamou
- curve deficiency
- curve flattening
- curvy
- deltoid curve
- demand curve
- de Rham curve
- distribution curve
- dragon curve
- duck curve
- dumbbell curve
- Edwards curve
- elliptic curve
- elliptic-curve cryptography
- Engel curve
- epi curve
- epidemic curve
- epidemiological curve
- Fermat curve
- flatten the curve
- foliate curve
- French curve
- Frey curve
- Gaussian curve
- Gompertz curve
- Gosper curve
- Great Gatsby curve
- hairpin curve
- Harnack's curve theorem
- Hellings and Downs curve
- Hellings-Downs curve
- Hilbert curve
- hockey stick curve
- horseshoe curve
- Hubbert curve
- indifference curve
- J-curve
- J curve
- Jordan curve
- Jordan curve theorem
- Keeling curve
- Kuznets curve
- Laffer curve
- Lamé curve
- learning curve
- light curve
- Lissajous curve
- logistic curve
- logocyclic curve
- Lorenz curve
- multicurve
- nonsimple curve
- offer curve
- open curve
- Page curve
- Peano curve
- pedal curve
- Phillips curve
- plane curve
- production possibility curve
- pursuit curve
- radial curve
- Rahn curve
- reverse curve
- rose curve
- rotation curve
- sail curve
- S-curve
- Sierpinski curve
- simple curve
- sine curve
- single curve
- space curve
- space-filling curve
- spacefilling curve
- spherical curve
- supply curve
- Takagi curve
- throw a curve
- throw someone a curve
- time curve
- tricuspoid curve
- velocity curve
- yield curve
Translations
gentle bend
|
curved line
|
geometry: one-dimensional figure
|
algebraic curve — see algebraic curve
informal: usually in plural: attractive features of a woman or informal: attractive shape of a woman's body
|
Verb
curve (third-person singular simple present curves, present participle curving, simple past and past participle curved)
- (transitive) To bend; to crook.
- to curve a line
- to curve a pipe
- (transitive) To cause to swerve from a straight course.
- to curve a ball in pitching it
- (intransitive) To bend or turn gradually from a given direction.
- the road curves to the right
- (transitive) To grade on a curve (bell curve of a normal distribution).
- The teacher will curve the test.
- (transitive) (slang) To reject, to turn down romantic advances.
- I was once curved three times by the same woman.
Translations
bend, crook
|
bend or turn gradually from a given direction
|
- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Anagrams
Chinese
Etymology
From English curve (“grading system”).
Pronunciation
Noun
curve (Hong Kong Cantonese)
- curve (grading system) (Classifier: 條／条 c)
- (by extension) standards (something used as a measure for comparison) (Classifier: 條／条 c)
Derived terms
Dutch
Etymology
Borrowed from Latin curvus (“bent, curved”).
Pronunciation
Noun
curve f (plural curven or curves, diminutive curvetje n)
Derived terms
Galician
Verb
curve
- inflection of curvar:
Italian
Adjective
curve
Noun
curve f
Latin
Pronunciation
Adjective
curve
Portuguese
Verb
curve
- inflection of curvar:
Romanian
Pronunciation
Noun
curve f
Spanish
Pronunciation
Verb
curve
- inflection of curvar: