curve
nounEtymology Attested since the 1690s, from Latin curvus (“bent, curved”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- (“to bend, curve, turn”) + *-wós. Doublet of curb, shrink, carcer, and cancer.
9 senses
- 1A gentle bend, such as in a road.
- 2A simple figure containing no straight portions and no…
- 3A grading system based on the scale of performance of a…
- 4A grading system where all raw scores are raised by a…
- 5A continuous map from a one-dimensional space to a…
- 6A one-dimensional figure of non-zero length; the graph…
- 7An algebraic curve; a polynomial relation of the planar…
- 8A one-dimensional continuum.
- 9The attractive shape of a woman's body.
1
A gentle bend, such as in a road.
- You should slow down when approaching a curve.
- But when we reflect that across the road at the centre of the arc of each curve there was a barricade, and cannon placed to rake the' intervals between the different barricades, the difficulties of the ascent, which is very steep, would be increased even to insurmountability.1877, John Joseph Henry, Account of Arnold's Campaign Against Quebec, J. Munsell, page 171:
2 more examples
- In appearance, the bharal resembles both a sheep and a goat. Its horns are smooth, rounded and form a curve backwards over the neck. The fur is brownish grey in colour which attains a slaty grey hue in winter and becomes browner in summer. In Kumaun the bharal is found in the desolate tracts of northern Pithoragarh, usually on the slopes of the main Himalayan range where it lives between the timberline and the snowline.1993, Sharad Singh Negi, Kumaun: The Land and the People, page 106:
- AROUND six years ago, Hyundai figured a 10-year warranty was not enough to attract shoppers and conjured up daring design for more attention. Sonata was the first to get the Fluidic Sculpture makeover, but the fifth-generation Elantra ended up being the swoopiest of the fleet. Hyundai’s newest gamble? Toning down those curves. […] Laugh at that detail now — you won’t when the sun is blinding you at 75 miles an hour on a curve.2016 April 28, Tom Voelk, “Video Review: Hyundai Elantra Offers Fewer Curves, but a Better Ride”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 08 Nov 2020:
2
A simple figure containing no straight portions and no angles; a curved line.
- She scribbled a curve on the paper.
- However, it should be possible to give more sophisticated spherical spline curves based on the de Castaljau method that are computed using multiple slerps between pairs of points and which work well for arbitrary knot positions (indeed, knot insertion methods for spline curves should suffice for this, cf Farin [1993])2001 April, Samuel R. Buss, Jay P Fillmore, “Spherical averages and applications to spherical splines and interpolation”, in ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG), volume 20, number 2:
3
A grading system based on the scale of performance of a group used to normalize a right-skewed grade distribution (with more lower scores) into a bell curve, so that more can receive higher grades, regardless of their actual knowledge of the subject.
- The teacher was nice and graded the test on a curve.
4
Broadly, Nonstandard A grading system where all raw scores are raised by a set amount of points.
5
Geometry, Mathematics, Sciences Analytic A continuous map from a one-dimensional space to a multidimensional space.
6
Geometry, Mathematics, Sciences A one-dimensional figure of non-zero length; the graph of a continuous map from a one-dimensional space.
7
Algebraic geometry, Geometry, Mathematics, Sciences An algebraic curve; a polynomial relation of the planar coordinates.
8
Mathematics, Sciences, Topology A one-dimensional continuum.
9
Informal, Plural normally The attractive shape of a woman's body.
- Derived terms
141 terms
above the curve, aerocurve, ahead of the curve, algebraic curve, Allen curve, bathtub curve, battleship curve, battleship-shaped curve, bean curve, behind the curve, bell curve, bell curve god, Bethe-Slater curve, Beveridge curve, Bézier curve, blancmange curve, blind curve, caustic curve, closed curve, closed timelike curve, cocked hat curve, compound curve, concentration-time curve, contract curve, cosine curve, counter curve, countercurve, cubic curve, curvaceous, curveball, curve-billed thrasher, curve-billed tinamou, curve deficiency, curve flattening, curveless, curvelet, curve of pursuit, curvesome, curvilinear, curvimeter, curvy, deltoid curve, demand curve, de Rham curve, distribution curve, dragon curve, duck curve, dumbbell curve, Edwards curve, eigencurve, elliptic curve, elliptic-curve cryptography, Engel curve, epicurve, epi curve, epidemic curve, epidemiological curve, equidistant curve, fatten the curve, Fermat curve, flatten the curve, foliate curve, French curve, Frey curve, Gaussian curve, Gompertz curve, Gosper curve, Great Gatsby curve, hairpin curve, Harnack's curve theorem, Hellings and Downs curve, Hellings-Downs curve, Hilbert curve, hockey stick curve, horseshoe curve, Hubbert curve, incurve, indifference curve, isocurve, J-curve, J curve, Jordan curve, Jordan curve theorem, Keeling curve, knucklecurve, Kuznets curve, Laffer curve, Lamé curve, learning curve, lightcurve, light curve, Lissajous curve, logistic curve, logocyclic curve, Lorenz curve, L-shaped curve, multicurve, nonsimple curve, offer curve, open curve, outcurve, Page curve, Pareto curve, Peano curve, pedal curve, Phillips curve, plane curve, production possibility curve, pursuit curve, radial curve, Rahn curve, recurve, reverse curve, rose curve, rotation curve, sail curve, S-curve, Sierpinski curve, simple curve, sine curve, single curve, skew curve, slurve, snowflake curve, space curve, spacefilling curve, space-filling curve, spherical curve, subcurve, supply curve, Takagi curve, tautochrone curve, throw a curve, throw someone a curve, time curve, traveltime curve, tricuspoid curve, undercurve, upcurve, velocity curve, yield curve