curl someone's hair
curl someone's hair verb: to frighten, dismay, or excite someone thoroughly.
Verb
curl someone's hair (third-person singular simple present curls someone's hair, present participle curling someone's hair, simple past and past participle curled someone's hair)
- To frighten, dismay, or excite someone thoroughly.
- "I'm not hankering for the dramatic in life, but we had a run last night that would curl your hair."1903, Andy Adams, chapter 7, in The Log of a Cowboy
- "Tell the son-of-a-gun for me that next time we meet I'll curl his hair right."1917, William MacLeod Raine, chapter 16, in The Sheriff's Son
- Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see curl, someone's, hair.
Forms of curl someone's hair
| third-person singular present | curls someone's hair |
|---|---|
| present participle | curling someone's hair |
| past participle | curled someone's hair |
| past | curled someone's hair |
| alternative form | make someone's hair curl |
Questions about curl someone's hair
- What does curl someone's hair mean?
- Curl someone's hair means to frighten, dismay, or excite someone thoroughly.
- What part of speech is curl someone's hair?
- Curl someone's hair is a verb.
- What is the past tense of curl someone's hair?
- The past tense of curl someone's hair is curled someone's hair.
Words near curl someone's hair in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: curl someone's hair (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-curl someone's hair.ogg.
Cite this entry: “curl someone's hair.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/curl_someone%27s_hair. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.