Curls

How to spell curls

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce curls

What does curls mean?

1. nounCoiled or spiralled locks of hair, or similar twisting shapes.
2. verbTwists something into a coiled or spiralled form, or moves in a winding way.

Curls in a sentence

• noun

  The humidity turned her loose curls into a frizzy halo.

• verb

  Smoke curls slowly from the chimney on a still morning.

• noun

  Tight curls framed the toddler's face in the photograph.

• verb

  She curls a strand of hair around her finger while reading.

Where does curls come from?

Language of origin: Dutch

The word comes from Middle English 'crulle', meaning 'curly', which appears to derive from a Middle Dutch or Low German word 'krul', describing something twisted or coiled. Over time the cluster of letters was rearranged so that the 'r' followed the 'u', giving us the modern 'curl'; this kind of swapping of sounds, called metathesis, is also why some older texts show the spelling 'crull'. The verb sense, to twist hair or another material into rings, grew naturally from the noun. By the 1500s the spelling and meaning had settled close to what we use today, and the plural and third-person form simply adds the regular '-s'. The Germanic root is the reason the word stays short and blunt, with no silent letters to trip an adult writer.

How the word is built

• curl (twist into a coil)
• -s (plural noun / third-person verb suffix)