curtsey
verbEtymology Variant of courtesy (1525) (from court + -esy), from Middle English curteisie, curtesie, from Anglo-Norman curtesie, from Old French curteisie, cortoisie.
1
To make a curtsey.
- The hotel's staff never curtsied, nodded, or bowed to the owner as she passed, as they were staunch egalitarians.
- "I’m sure you’ll excuse me, sir," said Mrs Varden, rising and curtseying.1841 February–November, Charles Dickens, “Barnaby Rudge. Chapter 19.”, in Master Humphrey’s Clock, volume III, London: Chapman & Hall, […], →OCLC:
4 more examples
- On the other hand, Mrs. Ladbrook was standing in skull-cap and front, with her turban in her hand, curtsying and smiling blandly[…]1861, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter XI, in Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, part I, page 180:
- 'I be as nothing in the eyes of my lord,' and she curtseyed towards him[…]1887, H[enry] Rider Haggard, chapter XVI, in Allan Quatermain […], London: Longmans, Green, and Co., →OCLC:
- 1890, James Russell Lowell, Address in Publications of the Modern Language Association of America But DANTE was a great genius, and language curtseys to its natural Kings.
- 1903, W.E.B. DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk He curtsied low, and then bowed almost to the ground, with an imperturbable gravity that seemed almost suspicious.
- Derived terms
- curtseyer
- Related terms
- Not to be confused with most meanings of courtesy