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:
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
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
Joseph Jr. — a wiry 22-year-old with a head full of curly dark brown hair — runs briskly toward the goal line with a black cast on his left arm.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 5, 2026
Her thick, curly hair was tied in two long braids that hung down her back like ropes.
From "The Interrupted Tale" by Maryrose Wood
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
“I love my hair because the curlier and the more strength that you have, the better your twist-outs are,” Henson said with a laugh.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 2, 2023
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
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 looked as if he had brushed it hard there to brush the curl out, but it was curliest there.
From The Wishing Moon by Dutton, Louise Elizabeth
His linen was of the very whitest, finest, and stiffest; his wig of the glossiest, blackest, and curliest.
From The Pickwick Papers by Dickens, Charles
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.
