curve
Americannoun
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curves
plural
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a continuously bending line, without angles.
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the act or extent of curving.
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any curved outline, form, thing, or part.
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a curved section of a road, path, hallway, etc.
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Railroads. a curved section of track: in the U.S. the curve is often expressed as the central angle, measured in degrees, of a curved section of track subtended by a chord 100 feet (30 meters) long degree of curve.
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Baseball.
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the path followed by a ball pitched as a curveball.
The curve on that ball was nasty!
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a graphic representation of the variations effected in something by the influence of changing conditions; graph.
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Mathematics. a collection of points whose coordinates are continuous functions of a single independent variable.
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Education. a grading system based on the scale of performance, so that those performing better relative to others in the group, regardless of their actual knowledge of the subject, receive high grades.
The new English professor grades on a curve.
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a curved guide used in drafting.
verb (used with object)
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curves,
present (3rd person singular)
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curved,
past participle, past
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curving
present participle
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to bend in a curve; cause to take the course of a curve.
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to grade on a curve.
verb (used without object)
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curves,
present (3rd person singular)
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curved,
past participle, past
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curving
present participle
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to bend in a curve; take the course of a curve.
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Baseball. to pitch a curveball.
After two forkballs, Stewart curved to Hernandez for a called strike.
adjective
idioms
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throw (someone) a curve,
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to take (someone) by surprise, especially in a negative way.
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to mislead or deceive.
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flatten the curve. see flatten the curve.
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ahead of / behind the curve, at the forefront of (or lagging behind) recent developments, trends, etc.
noun
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a continuously bending line that has no straight parts
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something that curves or is curved, such as a bend in a road or the contour of a woman's body
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the act or extent of curving; curvature
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maths
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a system of points whose coordinates satisfy a given equation; a locus of points
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the graph of a function with one independent variable
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a line representing data, esp statistical data, on a graph
an unemployment curve
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ahead of the times; ahead of schedule
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behind the times; behind schedule
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short for French curve
verb
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A line or surface that bends in a smooth, continuous way without sharp angles.
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The graph of a function on a coordinate plane. In this technical sense, straight lines, circles, and waves are all curves.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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curvednessnoun
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undercurvenoun
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undercurveverb (used without object)
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curvelessadjective
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curvyadjective
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uncurvedadjective
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uncurvingadjective
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well-curvedadjective
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curvedlyadverb
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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curvesimple
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curvessimple
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have curvedperfect
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has curvedperfect
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am curvingprogressive
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are curvingprogressive
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is curvingprogressive
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have been curvingperfect progressive
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has been curvingperfect progressive
Past
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curvedsimple
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had curvedperfect
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was curvingprogressive
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were curvingprogressive
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had been curvingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of curve
First recorded in 1565–75; from Middle French or directly from Latin curvus “crooked, bent, curved”
Explanation
A curve is an arched or bent shape, like the curve of a smiling mouth or the curve of a road that twists and turns as you drive along the coast. As a noun, a curve can be any shape that deviates from being perfectly straight. You can trace a curve on a graph, throw an arcing pitch in baseball called a curve ball, or just admire the curves of the rolling hills in the distance. And as a verb, curve means to make or form this non-straight shape: "When she's happy, my dog's tail curves up over her back."
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:
This small sideways displacement is the optical equivalent of the Magnus effect that makes a spinning table tennis ball curve through the air.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 13, 2026
When Carson Palmer got ahold of him, Trent certainly was ahead of the curve.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 11, 2026
Treasurys weakened across the yield curve, with two-year Treasury yields edging higher to 4.447%.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 10, 2026
For Schmidt, the ECB is simply "very worried about being behind the curve because of the experiences of 2021-2022".
From Barron's ● Sep. 7, 2026
And by the time I come careening around the curve of the lane and see the house, sitting by itself near the top of the hill, the sun is fully up.
From "The Light in Hidden Places" by Sharon Cameron
The first one was finished in 1915, and it was one scary ride, crazy as a Mobius strip, with 697 curves in its 36 miles.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 1, 2026
These asymmetric assemblages, however, don’t feel precarious, but rather safely grounded, their rounded curves giving them a calming maternal presence.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 17, 2026
In the same way a dismal class performance on a business school exam will still yield some A’s, curves also apply in the stock market when a company’s results aren’t necessarily jumping off the page.
From Barron's ● Jun. 29, 2026
At this point, customer adoption curves are the best indicator of whether the technology and the market are ready for mass rollout.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 22, 2026
If genes were discrete particles specifying one trait, then how could this property be reconciled with the occurrence of human characteristics, say, height or skin color, in continuous curves?
From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee
A tranquil hanging garden and rolling green hills are mirrored with dreamlike precision on the museum’s curved roof.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 8, 2026
In this work, however, the researchers demonstrated that weft knitting, the same industrial method commonly used to produce hats and gloves, can create complex curved structures using yarn alone.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 4, 2026
Designed to blend into the historic Baroque park, they are notable for their curved ceramic facades, daylight from skylights, accessibility features, drinking fountains -- and free use.
From Barron's ● Aug. 15, 2026
Additionally, the home has a den, built-in storage, curved staircase, outdoor movie pavilion, and 50-foot-long lap pool designed by Johnston Vidal.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 11, 2026
The living room bay window curved out invitingly, the lights blazed . . . home looked like such a safe place.
From "Found" by Margaret Peterson Haddix
Wearing a shoe called “El Último Tango”—”The Last Dance”—Messi sent a corner kick curving into the most dangerous zone on the pitch, head-high just in front of the net.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 4, 2026
Another side features a curving surface descending from the apex for winter sledding.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 8, 2026
Last June, Naomi Welikala noticed a line curving around the block of her local American Legion, an unassuming building that rarely invited commotion.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 2, 2026
The Egyptian had been fouled on the edge of the area, making Qarabag pay when he took Dominik Szoboszlai's quick touch to send a curving left-foot free-kick past goalkeeper Mateusz Kochalski into the top corner.
From BBC ● Jan. 28, 2026
The infinite zero of a black hole—mass crammed into zero space, curving space infinitely—punches a hole in the smooth rubber sheet.
From "Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea" by Charles Seife
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.
