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Dictionary

Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.

kerbstone en · NOUN

Etymology

From kerb + stone.

Meanings

  1. (UK) A paving stone that forms part of a kerb.
    • Gabriel often saw him on the streets, playing on the curbstone with other boys his age. 1953, James Baldwin, Go Tell It on the Mountain, New York, N.Y.: Knopf, →OCLC, part 2 (The Prayers of the Saints):
    • You see this creature with her kerbstone English: the English that will keep her in the gutter to the end of her days. Well, sir, in three months I could pass that girl off as a duchess at an ambassador’s garden party. 1912 (date written), [George] Bernard Shaw, “Pygmalion”, in Androcles and the Lion, Overruled, Pygmalion, London: Constable and Company, published 1916, →OCLC, Act I, page 115:

Forms

SpellingFeaturesLabelsSource
kerbstones Number=Plur lexicographic
curbstone US, alternative lexicographic

Deriveds

kerbstoned