Curvy

How to spell curvy

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce curvy

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does curvy mean?

1. adjectiveHaving many curves or a rounded, shapely form.

Curvy in a sentence

• The coastal road is narrow and curvy, so drivers slow right down.

• The designer chose a curvy font with soft, rounded letters.

Where does curvy come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word grows from the Latin curvus, which simply meant 'bent', 'crooked', or 'arched'. That Latin adjective gave English the noun and verb 'curve', borrowed in the late medieval period by way of related forms and refreshed by Latin learning during the 1400s and 1500s. The adjective 'curvy' is a much later, plainly English creation: it pairs the noun 'curve' with the productive native suffix '-y', which turns a thing into a quality and means roughly 'full of curves'. It appears in the 1800s and originally described anything with pronounced curves, from roads to handwriting, before settling into its common modern use describing a rounded, shapely human figure. The same curvus root quietly survives in technical relatives such as 'curvature' and 'curvilinear', and the spelling stays simple because the silent 'e' of 'curve' is dropped before the '-y' is added.

How the word is built

• curv- (from Latin curvus: bent)
• -y (adjective suffix meaning 'full of, having the quality of')