curtain

Syllables: cur·tain/ˈkɜːtn̩//ˈkɜɹt(ə)n/

curtain noun: a piece of cloth covering a window, bed, etc. to offer privacy and keep out light.

Image: Johannes Vermeer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

curtain (plural curtains)

(household) A piece of cloth covering a window, bed, etc. to offer privacy and keep out light.
- He drew the curtains at 11:00pm before falling asleep.
- Thus the red damask curtains which now shut out the fog-laden, drizzling atmosphere of the Marylebone Road, had cost a mere song, and yet they might have been warranted to last another thirty years. A great bargain also had been the excellent Axminster carpet which covered the floor; as, again, the...1913, Mrs. [Marie] Belloc Lowndes, chapter I, in The Lodger, London: Methuen, →OCLC; republished in Novels of Mystery: The Lodger; The Story of Ivy; What Really Happened, New York, N.Y.: Longmans...
A similar piece of cloth that separates the audience and the stage in a theater.
- “H'm !” he said, “so, so—it is a tragedy in a prologue and three acts. I am going down this afternoon to see the curtain fall for the third time on what[…]will prove a good burlesque ; but it all began dramatically enough. It was last Saturday[…]that two boys, playing in the little spinney just...1904–1905, Baroness Orczy [i.e., Emma Orczy], “The Lisson Grove Mystery”, in The Case of Miss Elliott, London: T[homas] Fisher Unwin, published 1905, →OCLC; republished as popular edition, London...
(broadly) The beginning of a show; the moment the curtain rises.
- He took so long to shave his head that we arrived 45 minutes after curtain and were denied late entry.
The flat area of wall which connects two bastions or towers; the main area of a fortified wall.
- Captain Rense, beleagring the Citie of Errona for us, […] caused a forcible mine to be wrought under a great curtine of the walles […]., Folio Society, 2006, vol.1, p.220
(euphemistic, in plural, sometimes) Death, final curtain.
- For life is quite absurd / And death's the final word / You must always face the curtain with a bow.1979, Monty Python, Always Look on the Bright Side of Life
That part of a wall of a building which is between two pavilions, towers, etc.
(derogatory, obsolete) A flag; an ensign.
- Their ragged curtains poorly are let loose1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...
The uninterrupted stream of fluid that falls onto a moving substrate in the process of curtain coating.
A haircut combining a long fringe on either side of a center part or sometimes off-center, with the sides and the back kept short.

Synonyms:

curtains

Verb

curtain (third-person singular simple present curtains, present participle curtaining, simple past and past participle curtained)

(transitive) To cover (a window) with a curtain; to hang curtains.
- In a large bedroom upstairs, the window of which was thickly curtained with a great woollen shawl lately discarded by the landlady, Mrs. Rolliver, were gathered on this evening nearly a dozen persons, all seeking vinous bliss; all old inhabitants of the nearer end of Marlott, and frequenters of...1891, Thomas Hardy, chapter IV, in Tess of the d’Urbervilles: A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented […], volume I, London: James R[ipley] Osgood, McIlvaine and Co., […], →OCLC, phase the first (The...
- The window, softly curtained with dotted swiss, became the focus of my desperate hour-by-hour attention.1985, Carol Shields, “Dolls, Dolls, Dolls, Dolls”, in The Collected Stories, Random House Canada, published 2004, page 163
(figuratively, transitive) To hide, cover or separate as if by a curtain.
- And, after conflict such as was supposed / The wandering prince and Dido once enjoy'd, / When with a happy storm they were surprised / And curtain'd with a counsel-keeping cave, / We may, each wreathed in the other's arms, / Our pastimes done, possess a golden slumber;1593, William Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus, act II, scene 2
- But poetry in a more restricted sense expresses those arrangements of language, and especially metrical language, which are created by that imperial faculty; whose throne is curtained within the invisible nature of man.1840, Percy Bysshe Shelley, A Defence of Poetry

curtain meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

curtain in Hindi

piece of cloth covering a window: पर्दा pardā
piece of cloth in a theater: पर्दा pardā

curtain in Tamil

piece of cloth covering a window: திரைச்சீலை tiraiccīlai, திரை tirai
piece of cloth in a theater: திரை tirai
to cover with a curtain: திரை போர்த்து tirai pōrttu

curtain in Marathi

curtain, blinds: पडदा paḍdā

curtain in Urdu

piece of cloth covering a window: پَرْدَہ parda
piece of cloth in a theater: پَرْدَہ parda

More languagesFewer languages

curtain in Bengali: পরদা porda
curtain in Telugu: తెర tera
curtain in Malayalam: തിരശ്ശീല tiraśśīla, എഴിനി eḻini, മറ maṟa, തിര tira
curtain in Kannada: ಅಂಕಪರದೆ aṅkaparade
curtain in Punjabi: ਪਰਦਾ pardā
curtain in Gujarati: ઢાંકપિછોડો ḍhā̃kpichoḍo
curtain in Odia: ପରଦା Paradā
curtain in Nepali: पर्दा pardā
curtain in Pashto: پرده parda, پېڅول paissawal
curtain in Tagalog: kurtina
curtain in Arabic: سِتَارَة sitāra
curtain in Malay: langsir, tirai, tabir
curtain in Indonesian: tirai, tabir, gorden
curtain in Thai: ม่าน mâan, ผ้าม่าน pâa-mâan
curtain in Vietnamese: màn cửa, màn, rèm, ri-đô
curtain in Myanmar: တင်းထိမ် tang:htim, ကန့်လန့်ကာ kan.lan.ka

Examples of curtain in a sentence

Thus the red damask curtains which now shut out the fog-laden, drizzling atmosphere of the Marylebone Road, had cost a mere song, and yet they might have been warranted to last another thirty years.1913, Mrs. [Marie] Belloc Lowndes, chapter I, in The Lodger, London: Methuen, →OCLC; republished in Novels of Mystery: The Lodger; The...
I am going down this afternoon to see the curtain fall for the third time on what[…]will prove a good burlesque ; but it all began dramatically enough.1904–1905, Baroness Orczy [i.e., Emma Orczy], “The Lisson Grove Mystery”, in The Case of Miss Elliott, London: T[homas] Fisher Unwin...
In a large bedroom upstairs, the window of which was thickly curtained with a great woollen shawl lately discarded by the landlady, Mrs.1891, Thomas Hardy, chapter IV, in Tess of the d’Urbervilles: A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented […], volume I, London: James R[ipley]...
He saw a rock that pierced the shifting waters / As they stilled, now curtained by the riding / Of the waves, and leaped to safety on it.1958, Ovid [Horace Gregory], The Metamorphoses, New York: Viking, Book IV, Perseus, page 115:

All 40 example sentences with curtain

Synonyms of curtain

Forms of curtain

Noun
plural	curtains
Verb
third-person singular present	curtains
present participle	curtaining
past participle	curtained
past	curtained

Plural of curtain: curtains

Origin of curtain

Inherited from Middle English curtine, from Old French cortine, from Late Latin cōrtīna (“curtain”), a calque from Ancient Greek.

Words formed from curtain

Words that rhyme with curtain

Questions about curtain

What does curtain mean?: Curtain means a piece of cloth covering a window, bed, etc. to offer privacy and keep out light.
What is curtain in Hindi?: Curtain in Hindi is पर्दा (pardā). See Curtain meaning in Hindi.
How do you use curtain in a sentence?: Thus the red damask curtains which now shut out the fog-laden, drizzling atmosphere of the Marylebone Road, had cost a mere song, and yet they might have been warranted to last another thirty years.
What part of speech is curtain?: Curtain can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce curtain?: Curtain is pronounced /ˈkɜːtn̩/ (UK).
What is the plural of curtain?: The plural of curtain is curtains.

Words near curtain in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: curtain (page history and authors); पडदा (Marathi) (page history and authors); എഴിനി (Malayalam) (page history and authors); ಅಂಕಪರದೆ (Kannada) (page history and authors); पर्दा (Nepali) (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: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-uk-curtain.ogg, En-us-curtain.ogg.

Cite this entry: “curtain.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/curtain. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.