adjective
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tending to curl; curling
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having curls
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(of timber) having irregular curves or waves in the grain
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difficult to counter or answer
a curly question
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Adjectives
Etymology
Origin of curly
Explanation
Something that's curly is wavy, coiled, or spiral-shaped. While you might envy your friend's straight, shiny hair, she may be equally envious of your wild, curly hair. You can add curly ribbons to a plain package to dress it up, or buy kale in different varieties, including one with curly leaves. You're most likely to use the adjective curly, however, to describe someone's hair, if it falls in ringlets. Curly comes from curl, which was originally crulle, probably from the Middle Dutch word krul, "curly."
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
I was more stressed than usual before my meditation session, because the researchers had instructed me to avoid coffee and hair gel—directions I found problematic for both my reporting focus and my curly hair.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 27, 2026
After her cancer went into remission, she wanted to restore her long curly hair and began taking biotin supplements after reading about them online.
From Science Daily ● May 7, 2026
A young Michaels, with thick black curly hair and the same distinctive voice, broadcast from the track and touched on the interesting elements of Shoemaker’s presence.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 26, 2026
There was also an image of the back of Cucurella's distinctive curly hair.
From BBC ● Apr. 22, 2026
Seven tied her combat boots and slipped on her oversized purple hoodie before securing her pointy hat on her curly hair with some pins.
From "Witchlings" by Claribel A. Ortega
The researchers found that the animals had longer, curlier hair, but no evidence that the mammoth's fat-increasing gene had an effect.
From BBC ● Mar. 4, 2025
The less evenly distributed the squiggly proteins are, the curlier the hair.
From Scientific American ● Aug. 16, 2023
“It’s curlier and frizzier and I love it,” Kouatchou said.
From Reuters ● Oct. 24, 2021
The book is full of bittersweet drawings of Marji’s tête-à-têtes with God, who resembles Marx, ‘though Marx’s hair was a bit curlier.’
From New York Times ● Oct. 21, 2021
His hair had grown out longer and curlier.
From "The House of Hades" by Rick Riordan
I don’t recall which of my appeals drew Todbaum’s curliest scorn, only that it got pretty curly.
From The New Yorker ● Feb. 25, 2019
Limping, hobbling, they tussled until nightfall, when the Navy goat had to admit that the absence of Shapely, one of its curliest horns, was too great a handicap.
From Time Magazine Archive
Big nose and big ears and the curliest hair at the fair.
From "The Midwife's Apprentice" by Karen Cushman
His linen was of the very whitest, finest, and stiffest; his wig of the glossiest, blackest, and curliest.
From The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens
To Sara's joy they struck into the curliest of the little paths, which slipped suddenly through a half-hidden arch in the hawthorn hedge, and then skipped confidingly right up to Avrillia's door.
From The Garden of the Plynck by Florence Minard
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
