English Explanatory Dictionary

curve

English dictionary entry

Meanings

adj
  1. Bent without angles; crooked; curved.
noun
  1. A gentle bend, such as in a road.
  2. A simple figure containing no straight portions and no angles; a curved line.
  3. A grading system based on the scale of performance of a group used to normalize a right-skewed grade distribution (with more lower scores) into a bell curve, so that more can receive higher grades, regardless of their actual knowledge of the subject.
  4. A grading system where all raw scores are raised by a set amount of points.
  5. A continuous map from a one-dimensional space to a multidimensional space.
  6. A one-dimensional figure of non-zero length; the graph of a continuous map from a one-dimensional space.
  7. An algebraic curve; a polynomial relation of the planar coordinates.
  8. A one-dimensional continuum.
  9. The attractive shape of a woman's body.
verb
  1. To bend; to crook.
  2. To cause to swerve from a straight course.
  3. To bend or turn gradually from a given direction.
  4. To grade on a curve (bell curve of a normal distribution).
  5. To reject, to turn down romantic advances.

Pronunciation

/kɜːv/ [ˈkʰɜːv] LL-Q1860 (eng)-Back ache-curve.wav /kɚv/ [ˈkʰɚv] en-us-curve.ogg

Word forms

curve curves curving curved

Etymology

Attested since the 1690s, from Latin curvus (“bent, curved”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- (“to bend, curve, turn”) + *-wós. Doublet of curb, shrink, carcer, and cancer.

Derived words

above the curve aerocurve ahead of the curve algebraic curve Allen curve bathtub curve battleship curve battleship-shaped curve bean curve behind the curve bell curve bell curve god Bethe-Slater curve Beveridge curve Bézier curve blancmange curve blind curve caustic curve closed curve closed timelike curve cocked hat curve compound curve concentration-time curve contract curve cosine curve counter curve countercurve cubic curve curvaceous curveball curve-billed thrasher curve-billed tinamou curve deficiency curve flattening curveless curvelet curve of pursuit curvesome curvilinear curvimeter curvy deltoid curve demand curve de Rham curve distribution curve dragon curve duck curve dumbbell curve Edwards curve eigencurve elliptic curve elliptic-curve cryptography Engel curve epicurve epi curve epidemic curve epidemiological curve equidistant curve fatten the curve Fermat curve
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