c. 1300, "to enclose with or as if with a curtain," from Old French cortiner, from cortine (see curtain (n.)). Related: Curtained.

"abridged, brief, cut short," 1570s, a variant of curtail. In poetics, of a "shortened" stanza or poem.

c. 1300, "vegetable garden," from Anglo-French curtilage, Old French courtillage, from Old French cortil "little court, walled garden, yard," from Medieval Latin cortile "court, yard," from Latin cortis (see court (n.)). In later use principally a legal word for "the enclosed land occupied by the dwelling and its yard and out-buildings."

"make a curtsy," 1550s, from curtsy (n.). Related: Curtsied; curtsying.

1936, U.S. colloquial, from curve (n.) + facetious use of -aceous, the Modern Latin botanical suffix meaning "of a certain kind." First recorded reference is in "Screen Book" magazine, writing of Mae West.

"continuous bending, the essential characteristic of a curve," 1660s, from Latin curvatura "a bending," from curvatus, past participle of curvare "to bend," from PIE root *sker- (2) "to turn, bend." In non-Euclidian geometry, from 1873.

early 15c. (implied in curved), intransitive, "have or assume a curved form," from Latin curvus "crooked, curved, bent," and curvare "to bend," both from PIE root *sker- (2) "to turn, bend." Transitive sense of  "cause to take the shape of a curve, bend" is from 1660s.

1690s, "curved line, a continuous bending without angles," from curve (v.). With reference to the female figure (usually plural, curves), from 1862; in reference to statistical graphs, by 1854; as a type of baseball pitch that does not move in a straight line, from 1879. An old name for it was slow. "Slows are balls simply tossed to the bat with a line of delivery so curved as to make them almost drop on the home base." [Chadwick's Base Ball Manual, 1874]