Dictionary

curtain-raise en · VERB

Etymology

From curtain-raiser.

Meanings

1. (idiomatic, transitive) To introduce; to prefigure, to set the stage for.
   • The fall and humiliation of Algerian President Ahmed ben Bella were carefully timed to curtain-raise what Bella intended as his biggest show, the "Second Bandung Conference." 1965, Herbert David Croly, The New Republic, volume 153:
   • Curtain-raised here, also, is Cromwell's eventual readiness to smash the monasteries and confiscate their revenue and property to finance the building of a modern state […] 2010 Mar, Christopher Hitchens, “The Men Who Made England”, in The Atlantic:

Forms