• (British) IPA: /kəːl/
• (America) IPA: /kɝl/

curl (plural curls)

1. A piece or lock of curling hair; a ringlet.
2. A curved stroke or shape.
   • 1995, John Curtis, Julian Reade, & Dominique Collon, Art and Empire: Treasures from Assyria in the British Museum‎, page 184:

     […] the backs of their necks and their forelegs are decorated with curls and their necks and bodies are covered with fine, undulating lines.

3. A spin making the trajectory of an object curve.
   • 1909, Harold Horsfall Hilton, The Six Handicap Golfer's Companion, page 38:

     It is possible to use the wind which blows from the left to the right by playing well into the wind with the slightest bit of curl on the ball […]

4. (curling) Movement of a moving rock away from a straight line.
5. (weightlifting) Any exercise performed by bending the arm, wrist, or leg on the exertion against resistance, especially those that train the biceps.
   • 2007 (Jan/Feb), Jon Crosby, "Your Winter Muscle Makeover", Men's Health, page 54:

     Now do a curl and an overhead press, keeping your palms facing in.

6. (calculus) The vector field denoting the rotationality of a given vector field.

   The curl of the vector field \vec{F}(x,y,z) is the vector field \operatorname{curl}\,\vec{F} \equiv \vec{\nabla}\times\vec{F}=\left( \frac{\partial F_z}{\partial y} - \frac{\partial F_y}{\partial z}, \frac{\partial F_x}{\partial z} - \frac{\partial F_z}{\partial x}, \frac{\partial F_y}{\partial x} - \frac{\partial F_x}{\partial y} \right).

7. (calculus, proper noun) The vector operator, denoted \rm{curl}\; or \vec{\nabla}\times\vec{\left(\cdot\right)}, that generates this field.
8. (agriculture) Any of various diseases of plants causing the leaves or shoots to curl up; often specifically the potato curl.
9. (music, chiefly, lutherie) The contrasting light and dark figure seen in wood used for stringed instrument making; the flame.

   The one-piece back is of a medium curl.

10. (American football) A pattern where the receiver appears to be running a fly pattern but after a set number of steps or yards quickly stops and turns around, looking for a pass.

• (lock of curling hair) ringlet
• (curved stroke or shape) curlicue, curve, flourish, loop, spiral

• (weightlifting exercise) extension

• French: boucle
• German: Locke
• Italian: riccio, ricciolo, boccolo
• Portuguese: caracol
• Russian: ло́кон
• Spanish: rizo, bucle

• Italian: arricciamento
• Russian: завито́к

• Italian: rotazione, spirale

• Italian: voluta

• Spanish: flexión

• French: rotationnel
• Italian: rotazione

• Russian: ро́тор

• Italian: arricciamento, accartocciamento

curl (curls, present participle curling; past and past participle curled)

1. (transitive) To cause to move in a curve.
2. (transitive) To make into a curl or spiral.
3. (intransitive) To assume the shape of a curl or spiral.
4. (intransitive) To move in curves.
5. (intransitive, curling) To take part in the sport of curling.

   I curl at my local club every weekend.

6. (transitive, weightlifting) To exercise by bending the arm, wrist, or leg on the exertion against resistance, especially of the biceps.
7. To twist or form (the hair, etc.) into ringlets.
   • 1977, Agatha Christie, chapter 4, in An Autobiography, part II, London: Collins, →ISBN:

     There was also hairdressing: hairdressing, too, really was hairdressing in those times — no running a comb through it and that was that. It was curled, frizzed, waved, put in curlers overnight, waved with hot tongs; […].

8. To deck with, or as if with, curls; to ornament.
   • 1667, John Milton, “Book 7”, in Paradise Lost. A Poem Written in Ten Books, London: Printed [by Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […] [a]nd by Robert Boulter […] [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], OCLC 228722708 ↗; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: The Text Exactly Reproduced from the First Edition of 1667: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, OCLC 230729554 ↗:

     Thicker than the snakie locks / That curld Megæra.

   • Curling with metaphors a plain intention.

9. To raise in waves or undulations; to ripple.

   • Seas would be pools without the brushing air / To curl the waves.

10. (hat-making) To shape (the brim of a hat) into a curve.

• (to make into a curl or spiral) arch, coil, roll up
• (to assume the shape of a curl or spiral) coil, roll up
• (to move in curves) curve, spiral

• (to make into a curl or spiral) straighten, uncoil, unroll
• (to assume the shape of a curl or spiral) straighten, uncoil, unroll

• Russian: вить

• Portuguese: encaracolar

• Russian: ви́ться

1. Surname