[ad. L. curt-us cut or broken short, mutilated, abridged, which became in late L. and Romanic the ordinary word for ‘short’: It., Sp. corto, Pr. cort, F. court.
The Latin adj. was app. adopted at an early date in Ger., giving OS. and OFris. curt (MDu. cort, Du., MLG. and LG. kort, whence also mod.Icel. korta, Sw. and Da. kort), OHG. kurt, kurz (MHG. and mod.Ger. kurz), where the word has taken the place of an original Teut. *skurt-, in OHG. scurz, in OE. scort, sceort, SHORT. But the latter was retained in English.]
1. Short in linear dimension; shortened.
1665. Sir T. Herbert, Trav. (1677), 295. In more temperate climes hair is curt.
1840. Lytton, Pilgr. of Rhine, xix. Thy limbs are crooked and curt.
1862. Merivale, Rom. Emp. (1865), III. xxviii. 297. Plancus … enacted the part of the sea-god Glaucus in curt cerulean vestments.
b. of things immaterial, modes of action, etc.
1664. H. More, Myst. Iniq., 351. For which curt reckoning Grotius has no excuse.
1675. Traherne, Chr. Ethics, xx. 318. That vertue so curt and narrow, which we thought to be infinite.
a. 1677. Barrow, Serm. (1687), I. xviii. 258. The most curt and compendious way of bringing about dishonest or dishonourable designs.
1874. H. R. Reynolds, John Bapt., ii. 89. An angelic spirit makes a more curt and much easier use than we can do of the functions of matter in its most etherial form.
2. Of words, sentences, style, etc.: Concise, brief, condensed, terse; short to a fault.
1630. B. Jonson, New Inn, III. i. What’s his name? Fly. Old Peck. Tip. Maestro de campo, Peck! his name is curt, A monosyllable, but commands the horse well.
1645. Milton, Tetrach. (1851), 177. The obscure and curt Ebraisms that follow.
1791. Boswell, Johnson (1887), III. 274. He could put together only curt frittered fragments of his own.
1814. D’Israeli, Amen. Lit. (1867), 132. Their Saxon-English is nearly monosyllabic, and their phraseology curt.
1866. Rogers, Agric. & Prices, I. iii. 61. The dry and curt language of a petition in parliament.
b. So brief as to be wanting in courtesy or suavity.
1831. Disraeli, Yng. Duke, V. vii. (L.). ‘Ah! I know what you are going to say,’ observed the gentleman in a curt, gruffish voice, ‘It is all nonsense.’
1863. Geo. Eliot, Romola (1880), I. Introd. 9. He might have been a little less defiant and curt, though, to Lorenzo de’ Medici.
