[kur-tl] 
| 1. | Archaic. wearing a short frock: a curtal friar. |
| 2. | Obsolete. brief; curtailed. |
| 3. | a 16th-century bassoon. |
| 4. | Obsolete. an animal with a docked tail. |
| cur·tal (kûr'tl) n. Archaic
Cut short or docked. [Obsolete French courtault, from Old French, from court, short, from Latin curtus; see sker-1 in Indo-European roots.] |
curtal
Renaissance-era musical instrument and predecessor of the bassoon, with a double-back bore cut from a single piece of wood and built in sizes from treble to double bass (sometimes called the double curtal in England and the Choristfagott in Germany). The curtal was developed in the 16th century, probably in Italy, to be used with choirs as a bass that would be less clamorous than the brasses of the time.
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