Home / Words / curtailNo. 0068

curtail

/kɜːrˈteɪl/·verb

to cut something short; to reduce or restrict it
Fig. 1 — The afternoon in the park is nowhere near finished — the sun says so, high and unbothered — and the swing is at the top of its game.
01Definition

To curtail is to cut a thing short of the length it was heading for: a tour curtailed by illness, spending curtailed by a bad quarter, freedoms curtailed by emergency law. The word began at the stables — a curtal horse was one with a docked tail, from Latin curtus, 'cut short' — and the spelling later leaned toward 'tail' to match the image. What is curtailed is not cancelled; it goes on existing in clipped form, always a little shorter than it meant to be.

02In use
  • iThe tour was curtailed when the singer lost her voice in the second week.
  • iiNew regulations curtail how long lorry drivers may work without rest.
  • iiiThe drought forced the city to curtail water use in every public park.
03Collocations
  • curtail spending
  • curtail freedoms
  • sharply curtailed
  • curtail a visit
  • curtail emissions

Family curtailment (noun) · curtailed (adjective)

04Relations

=restrict, curb, shorten, trim, limit

≠extend, prolong, expand

06TOEFL & IELTS

A formal, high-band verb for Task 2 policy writing: governments curtail spending, emissions and — in the exam's favourite collocation — civil liberties; sharply curtailed is the standard intensified form. It implies cutting short something already running, which separates it from prevent (stopping a thing before it starts) and restrict (fencing it with limits while it goes on). The etymology is a free memory hook: a curtal horse had a docked tail — curtailing always leaves the animal, minus some tail.

07Asked
How do you pronounce curtail?
Cur-TAIL — /kɜːrˈteɪl/ in American English, /kɜːˈteɪl/ in British — with the stress on the second syllable; the first syllable is the weak one, unlike in curtain, where CUR- carries the word. Rhyme it with derail and prevail. The noun curtailment keeps the same stress: cur-TAIL-ment. Getting the stress wrong is the word's one real pronunciation trap.
Does curtail come from cutting a horse's tail?
Almost — the tail is folk etymology doing its work. The source is French courtault, 'made short', from Latin curtus; English borrowed it as curtal, the word for a horse with a docked tail. Because that word so often described tails, the spelling drifted toward -tail, and curtail was born — a word whose ending was reshaped by the image it kept company with.
What is the difference between curtail and reduce?
Register and attitude. Reduce is the neutral all-purpose verb — reduce costs, reduce speed, by any amount, for any reason. Curtail is formal, deliberate and substantial, and its objects skew toward things someone valued: freedoms, services, spending, a visit. Saying activities were curtailed implies an authority chose to cut them short, and that someone felt the loss.
Curtail or restrict — which goes with freedoms?
Both appear in serious writing, with a tell: curtail cuts the amount or extent (press freedom was sharply curtailed — there is now less of it), while restrict draws boundaries around the exercise of it (movement was restricted to daylight hours — it continues, within limits). If the quantity shrinks, curtail; if the fence goes up, restrict.
What does it mean to curtail civil liberties?
To cut back rights that normally run at full length — assembly, speech, movement — usually under emergency powers, and usually with a promise of restoration that history says to watch closely. It is the collocation exams and news writing favour: governments curtail liberties during wars, pandemics and states of emergency, and courts later decide whether the cutting was lawful.
What is the difference between curb and curtail?
Curb reins in — the word is from the horse's bit — checking an impulse or appetite before it runs: curb inflation, curb your temper. Curtail cuts short what is already running at length, like the afternoon in the scene above, ended by the gate with the sun still high. You curb what threatens to bolt; you curtail what already runs — the day goes on existing, just shorter than it was meant to be.