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curtainless

 - 2 dictionary results
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cur⋅tain

  [kur-tn]
Use curtainless in a Sentence
–noun
1. a hanging piece of fabric used to shut out the light from a window, adorn a room, increase privacy, etc.
2. a movable or folding screen used for similar purposes.
3. Chiefly New England. a window shade.
4. Theater.
a. a set of hanging drapery for concealing all or part of the stage or set from the view of the audience.
b. the act or time of raising or opening a curtain at the start of a performance: an 8:30 curtain.
c. the end of a scene or act indicated by the closing or falling of a curtain: first-act curtain.
d. an effect, line, or plot solution at the conclusion of a performance: a strong curtain; weak curtain.
e. music signaling the end of a radio or television performance.
f. (used as a direction in a script of a play to indicate that a scene or act is concluded.)
5. anything that shuts off, covers, or conceals: a curtain of artillery fire.
6. Architecture. a relatively flat or featureless extent of wall between two pavilions or the like.
7. Fortification. the part of a wall or rampart connecting two bastions, towers, or the like.
8. curtains, Slang. the end; death, esp. by violence: It looked like curtains for another mobster.
–verb (used with object)
9. to provide, shut off, conceal, or adorn with, or as if with, a curtain.
—Idioms
10. draw the curtain on or over,
a. to bring to a close: to draw the curtain on a long career of public service.
b. to keep secret.
11. lift the curtain on,
a. to commence; start.
b. to make known or public; disclose: to lift the curtain on a new scientific discovery.
Origin:
1250–1300; ME co(u)rtine < AF, OF < LL cortīna, prob. equiv. to co(ho)rt- (s. of cohors; see court ) + -īna -ine 1 , as calque of Gk aulaía curtain, deriv. of aul courtyard

Related forms:
cur⋅tain⋅less, adjective

Synonyms:
1. drapery, portiere, lambrequin, valance. 1, 3. Curtain, blind, shade, shutter agree in being covers for a window, to shut out light or keep persons from looking in. Curtain, blind, and shade may mean a cover, usually of cloth, which can be rolled up and down inside the window. Curtain, however, may also refer to a drapery at a window; and a Venetian blind consists of slats mounted on tapes for drawing up or down and varying the pitch of the slats. Blind and shutter may mean a cover made of two wooden frames with movable slats, attached by hinges outside a window and pulled together or opened at will. Shutters may mean also a set of panels (wooden or iron) put up outside small shops or stores at closing time.

Regional variation note:
3. See window shade.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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Curtain Less
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Curtain Less
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Word Origin & History

curtain 
c.1303, from O.Fr. curtine, from L.L. cortina "curtain," but originally "round vessel, cauldron," from L. cortem (older cohortem) "enclosure, courtyard." The confusion apparently begins in using cortina as a loan-translation for Gk. aulaia ("curtain") in the Vulgate (to render Heb. yeriah in Exodus xxvi:1, etc.) because the Gk. word was connected to aule "court," perhaps because the "door" of a Gk. house that led out to the courtyard was a hung cloth. The fig. sense in curtain call is from 1884. Curtains "the end" is 1912, originally from stage plays.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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