Curled

How to spell curled

6 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce curled

What does curled mean?

1. verbFormed into a coiled or curved shape, or moved in a coiling motion (past tense of curl).

Curled in a sentence

• The cat curled up on the warm windowsill and slept for hours.

• Smoke curled slowly from the chimney into the still evening air.

Where does curled come from?

Language of origin: Dutch

This is the past tense of the verb 'curl', which traces back to the Middle English word 'crulle' or 'crulled', meaning 'having tight rings or coils'. That form arrived from Middle Dutch 'krul', meaning a curl or twist of hair, and is related to the Dutch word 'krullen', 'to curl'. Interestingly, the order of letters shifted over time: the older form put the 'r' before the 'u' (crul), and English later swapped them to give the modern 'cur-' spelling, a process linguists call metathesis. The same Germanic root underlies words like 'curly' and the dialect word 'crull' for a twisted cake. Because the word is short and follows the regular pattern of simply adding -ed, its spelling rarely troubles adult writers.

How the word is built

• curl (to coil or twist)
• -ed (past tense/past participle suffix)