Dictionary

curlicue en · NOUN

Etymology

From curly + cue.

Meanings

1. A fancy twisting or curling shape usually made from a series of spirals and loops.
   • There was not the slightest use in trying to make its twisty curlicue streets conform to any engineering plan on earth; so those sensible old-time folk didn't try. 1917, Anna Alice Chapin, Greenwich Village, page 45:
   • (Curlicue hand-drawn cartoons blossom frequently throughout, touching base with the source material’s distinctive visual style while adding an aptly hallucinogenic vibe when required.) 2015 August 6, Leslie Felperin, “The Diary of a Teenage Girl review – a scaldingly honest coming-of-age comedy”, in The Guardian:
   • I put in plenty of curlicues after the figures so that no one could raise the check into $400,000; then I got out my old rattan suit case and put in some clothes. 1917, Christopher Morley, chapter 3, in Parnassus on Wheels, New York, N.Y.: Grosset & Dunlap Publishers, →OCLC:

Forms

Deriveds

curlicue fractal

Translations (7)

pl zakrętas (fancy curling shape) · pl zawijas (fancy curling shape) · fi koukero (fancy curling shape) · bg завъртулка (fancy curling shape) · cs kudrlinky (fancy curling shape) · cs kudrlinka (fancy curling shape) · de Schnörkel (fancy curling shape)

curlicue en · VERB

Etymology

From curly + cue.

Meanings

1. (intransitive, transitive) To make or adorn (something) with curlicues, or as if with curlicues.
   • A chandelier the shape of an anchor, hanging over Smith's head as he passed out through this vestibule. Walls curlicued with comb marks of some fancy plasterer. 1963, J P Donleavy, A Singular Man, published 1963 (USA), pages 231–232:
   • I was looking, obliquely, at Bunny slumped over his bowl when all of a sudden, in the window behind his head, I saw the distant figure of Mr. Hatch, walking across the open field beyond the garden, carrying the dark, curlicued ruins of the Malacca chair to the rubbish heap. 1992, Donna Tartt, The Secret History:
   • “Here We Go Again” is the gentlest kiss-off imaginable, with strings and harp and curlicued guitars cushioning Ms. Stone’s farewell[…] 2007 October 15, The New York Times, “New CDs”, in New York Times:

Forms