Curving

How to spell curving

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce curving

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does curving mean?

1. verbBending or moving in a smooth, rounded path rather than a straight line.
2. adjectiveHaving a smoothly bent or rounded shape.

Curving in a sentence

• verb

  The road kept curving to the left as it climbed the hill.

• adjective

  The gallery featured a long curving staircase made of polished oak.

• verb

  She watched the river curving gently through the valley.

• adjective

  A curving driveway led visitors up to the main entrance.

Where does curving come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This is the present participle of the verb 'curve', which traces back to the Latin adjective curvus, meaning 'bent' or 'crooked'. Latin curvus produced the verb curvare, 'to bend', and that sense of arcing away from a straight line carried through into English. The word arrived in the 1400s, at first used in technical and geometric contexts before spreading into ordinary description of anything that bends smoothly. The same curvus root survives in relatives such as 'curvature' and 'curvaceous', and even in the medical term 'scoliosis' by way of related ideas of crookedness. When 'curve' takes the -ing ending, the silent final 'e' is simply dropped, which is the small spelling point worth remembering: it is curving, not curveing.

How the word is built

• curv- (from Latin curvus: bent, crooked)
• -ing (present participle / gerund suffix)