adjective
-
tending to curl; curling
-
having curls
-
(of timber) having irregular curves or waves in the grain
-
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:
She recalled Pike being very well put together, with similar curly hair to her own, and she felt their small similarities gave them common ground.
From BBC ● Oct. 3, 2026
Although the transfer has yet to be finalised, the club teased the signing on social media, external with an image showing Vozinha's familiar curly hair.
From BBC ● Jul. 25, 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
Williams embraced the nickname “Curly,” given to him by a fellow student in response to his curly red hair, and quickly created his own jazz band with classmates.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 4, 2026
She was tall and thin—with dark curly hair framing her face in a halo.
From "Beasts of Prey" by Ayana Gray
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
When Alice Dearing becomes the first Black British woman to compete in swimming, you won’t see her wearing the newly created Soul Cap, explicitly designed to accommodate thicker, curlier hair.
From New York Times ● Jul. 23, 2021
I hung back to defend our goal with a boy in overlarge cleats—he must have had Hobbit feet like me—and Persian hair even longer and curlier than mine.
From "Darius the Great Is Not Okay" by Adib Khorram
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
It would take out the curliest curl that ever was in thirty seconds.
From Betty Wales, Sophomore by Margaret Warde
She is an unaffected, pretty little creature,—a perfect child, with the curliest chestnut hair, deep blue eyes, and the brightest cheeks, lips, and teeth.
From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 01, No. 06, April, 1858 by Various
Random Word
Spin the wheel and learn a new word!
Get a wordDefinitions 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.
