curtain line

American  

noun

Theater.

1. the last line of a scene, act, etc., as in a play; tag line.

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Etymology

Origin of curtain line

First recorded in 1935–40

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

curtain line

Audiences, actors, directors, everyone pressed Shaw to give the play a happy ending — the actress he had written Eliza for rebelled and wrote her own cutesy curtain line — but Shaw wouldn’t budge.

From New York Times ● Mar. 27, 2018

What Ben doesn’t know, he tells us in the curtain line, “would fill a book”: he is a blank slate whose life in some way is only now beginning.

From New York Times ● Apr. 5, 2011

This time, the curtain line was his: “Nobody’s perfect.”

From New York Times ● Sep. 30, 2010

It is not giving away much to reveal this gothic moment as the curtain line of So Long on Lonely Street, a zesty, poignant and fiercely funny comedy.

From Time Magazine Archive

The Maker of Sounds enters with his arms full of instruments, crosses the scene and sits with his back against one side of the proscenium, outside the curtain line.

From Fifty Contemporary One-Act Plays by Various