curling
noun
Simple meaning
A winter sport where players aim and slide stones down a sheet of ice and try to get their color stones closest to the house.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
kurlingSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈkɝlɪŋ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
uncountable
A winter sport where players aim and slide stones down a sheet of ice and attempt to get their color stones closest to the house (a circular target marked on the ice).
The action or motion of something that curls or is curled.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B2 · Upper Intermediate (estimated)
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- Neutral / general English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A winter sport where players aim and slide stones down a sheet of ice and attempt to get their color stones closest to the house (a circular target marked on the ice).
Used this way, curling is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a sporting use: familiar to anyone who follows the game, and puzzling to anyone who does not.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Where it naturally appears
- Sports
- News/reporting
- Everyday conversation
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use curling
- “A scornful curling of the lip.”noun
- “It's fun to watch the athletes sliding stones in the sport of curling.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
Form a curl, curve, or kink.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A cylindrical metal home appliance that heats a lock of hair that has been curled around it.
An exercise designed to strengthen the flexor muscles of the leg.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.