Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use curtail in a sentence

18 example sentences · verb, noun

Curtail means to cut short the tail of (an animal). Example: “Curtailing horses procured long horse-hair.”

Examples of curtail by meaning

verbTo cut short the tail of (an animal).

  • Curtailing horses procured long horse-hair.

verbTo shorten or abridge the duration of; to bring an end to; to truncate.

  • When the audience grew restless, the speaker curtailed her speech.

verbTo limit or restrict; to keep in check.

  • This is the rump of the C.L.C. branch to Southport Lord Street, which lost its passenger services beyond Aintree from January 7, 1952, whereupon the timetable between Gateacre and Aintree was greatly curtailed.1960 December, “Talking of Trains: Branch report”, in Trains Illustrated, page 708

More sentences with curtail

  • With its government funding curtailed, the gun registry became an orphan program.From the entry orphan
  • The newly-appointed border czar is expected to heavily curtail illegal immigration.From the entry border czar
  • Alleygating has been shown to work. A number of criminal or anti-social acts can be curtailed or eliminated if security gates are installed.From the entry alleygating
  • Uses of tetrachloroethylene have included dry cleaning, degreasing, deworming, and others, but its use is now curtailed as compared with decades ago.From the entry tetrachloroethylene
  • Jonty's instinctive awestruck expression had been curtailed by repeated skelpings across the head by his father, Henry.2015, Irvine Welsh, A Decent Ride, page 53. From the entry skelping
  • Moneypenny reminding Bond of his responsibilities and limitations curtails the textual harassment of the character.2002, Tara Brabazon, Ladies Who Lunge: Celebrating Difficult Women, page 104. From the entry textual harassment
  • Throughout recent history, fishermen have shown an almost pathological disregard for rules and regulations that would curtail their fisheries.2013, Richard Ellis, Swordfish: A Biography of the Ocean Gladiator, Chicago, Ill.; London: The University of Chicago Press, →ISBN, page 222. From the entry codfisherman
  • The law was intended to reduce overgrazing by cattle, but its impact would be to further curtail land for Africans.1994, Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela, London: Abacus, published 2010, page 142. From the entry overgrazing
  • During those 5 years, KMT troops stationed on the islands also have curtailed their shellings of the mainland.1984 January 30 [1984 January 26], Ding Gu, Huang Mingshan, “The Taiwan Strait Today”, in Daily Report: China, volume I, number 020…. From the entry Erdan
  • Taking with one hand what it gave with the other, the Court curtails Ramoss effects by expunging Teagues provision for watershed rules.2021, Edwards v. Vannoy (U.S. Supreme Court No. 19–5807), Justice Kagan dissenting. From the entry give with one hand and take away with the other
  • The following are some examples of educational disjunctivitis that have curtailed the supply of teachers and interfered with their appropriate preparation and effective utilization.1972, Adeniji Adaralegbe, Nigeria Educational Research Council, A philosophy for Nigerian education: proceedings, page 92. From the entry disjunctivitis
  • Alex Chalk, the cool Sunakite justice secretary, has just abandoned Dominic Raab’s “British Bill of Rights”, which was itself a rather timid attempt to curtail the European court’s powers.2023 June 30, John Rentoul, “Defeat over the Rwanda policy is a disaster for Sunak”, in The Independent, page 25. From the entry Sunakite
  • With the introduction of the Ruhnama signalling a concerted drive to Turkmenize society at large, Niyazov drastically curtailed the use of Russian in education and official communication.2011, Dilip Hiro, Inside Central Asia: A Political and Cultural History of Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz stan, Tajikistan…. From the entry Turkmenize
  • Fourth, if there is a shortage of motive power or of trainmen, it is generally the lower orders of freight train which have to be curtailed or cancelled altogether.1961 March, Warren Smith, “The problems of train regulation - a study of operation at Trent”, in Trains Illustrated, page 169. From the entry trainman
  • The problem is not that computers have replaced people, but that they have curtailed their space for adventure, especially in "classical" chess played under long time limits at championship level.2021 November 26, John Gapper, “Chess faces stalemate in its match with machines”, in Financial Times. From the entry classical chess

Meaning of curtail

  1. verb To cut short the tail of (an animal).
  2. verb To shorten or abridge the duration of; to bring an end to; to truncate.
  3. verb To limit or restrict; to keep in check.

Full definition of curtail

Questions about curtail in a sentence

How do you use curtail in a sentence?
Curtail is used as a verb and noun. For example: “Curtailing horses procured long horse-hair.”
What is a short sentence with curtail?
“Curtailing horses procured long horse-hair.”
What does curtail mean?
Curtail means to cut short the tail of (an animal).

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: curtail (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use curtail in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/curtail. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.