Word.ws English Dictionary

curtal

UK/ˈkəːtəl/

curtal noun: a variety of short-barrelled cannon.

Noun

curtal (plural curtals)

  1. (historical) A variety of short-barrelled cannon.
  2. An early type of bassoon.
  3. (obsolete) A horse or other animal having a docked tail.
  4. (obsolete) Anything docked or cut short.

Adjective

curtal (comparative more curtal, superlative most curtal)

  1. (obsolete) Of horses, having a docked tail.
  2. (archaic) Physically shortened; short.
    • she had loosened her hair and changed into the curtal frock of sunbright cotton that he was so fond of and had so ardently yearned to soil in the so recent past.1969, Vladimir Nabokov, Ada or Ardor, Penguin, published 2011, page 98
  3. (obsolete) Abridged, curtailed.
    • essays and curtal aphorisms1649, J[ohn] Milton, ΕΙΚΟΝΟΚΛΆΣΤΗΣ [Eikonoklástēs] […], London: […] Matthew Simmons, […], →OCLC

Forms of curtal

Noun
pluralcurtals
Adjective
comparativemore curtal
superlativemost curtal

Origin of curtal

From older French courtault (modern French courtaud), from court (“short”) + -ault (pejorative suffix).

Words formed from curtal

Phrases with curtal

Questions about curtal

What does curtal mean?
Curtal means a variety of short-barrelled cannon.
What part of speech is curtal?
Curtal can be a noun or an adjective.
How do you pronounce curtal?
Curtal is pronounced /ˈkəːtəl/ (UK).
What is the plural of curtal?
The plural of curtal is curtals.

Words near curtal in the dictionary

  1. curtainsider
  2. curtainsiders
  3. curtainwall
  4. curtainwalls
  5. curtainwise
  6. curtal
  7. curtal friar
  8. curtal friars
  9. curtal-ax
  10. curtal-axe
  11. curtal-axes

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: curtal (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.

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