Also 6 coruet, 7 corvet, -bet, curuette, -ete, -eat. Inflected curve·tted, -ing, and cu·rveted, -ing. [ad. It. corvettare ‘to corvet or praunce,’ f. corvetta CURVET sb. Originally always stressed on the final, but now very generally (though less so than the sb.) on the first syllable. Todd has cu·rvet for the sb., curve·t for the vb.; Webster 1828, Smart 1836, have cu·rvet for vb. as well as sb.]
1. intr. Of a horse: To execute a curvet, leap in a curvet. Said also of the horseman.
1592. Shaks., Ven. & Ad., 279. Anon he rears upright, corvets and leaps.
1682. Shadwell, Medal, 4. The sprightly Horse y’ have seen, Praunce, and curvet, with pleasure to the sight.
1695. Motteux, St. Olon’s Morocco, 8. He took a fancy … to Curvet in his Gardens on a fiery Horse.
1768–74. Tucker, Lt. Nat. (1852), II. 445. He may let him sometimes prance and caper and curvet.
1805. Scott, Last Minstrel, IV. xxi. Forced him, with chastened fire, to prance, And, high curvetting, slow advance.
a. 1839. Praed, Poems (1864), II. 423. Looking for her, as he curvets by.
1866. R. M. Ballantyne, Shifting Winds, vi. (1881), 60. [The] fresh and mettlesome steeds curveted and pranced.
b. trans. To cause to curvet.
1613. Wotton, in Reliq. Wotton. (1672), 419. Sir R. Drury … corbeteth his Horse before the Kings window.
2. transf. To leap about, frisk: also fig.
1600. Shaks., A. Y. L., III. ii. 258. Cry holla to the tongue, I prethee: it curuettes vnseasonably.
1649. G. Daniel, Trinarch. Hen. V., xiv. As were the yeare Beat in a Plott, and Dayes were Curvetting [rhyme king].
1860. J. P. Kennedy, Swallow B., iii. 40. A mischievous imp, who curvets about the house.
