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Having short bends, turns, or wrinkles; wrinkled; wavy; zigzag. "The crinkled lightning." Lowell.

Brittle; friable; in a condition to break with a short, sharp fracture; as, crisp snow. The cakes at tea ate short and crisp. Goldsmith.

Formed into short, close ringlets; frizzed; crisp; as, crispy locks.

Hair cut close or short, or the act or style of so cutting; as, a convict's crop.

ne night cross a village. L'Estrange. To go cross lots, to go across the fields; totake a short cut. [Colloq.]

A short cut across; a path shorter than by the high road.

Short; brittle; as, crup cake. Todd.

Having a hard exterior, or a short, rough manner, though kind at heart; snappish; peevish; surly. Thou crusty batch of nature, what's the news Shak.

A staff used in cudgel play, shorter than the quarterstaff, and wielded with one hand; hence, any heavy stick used as a weapon. He getteth him a grievous crabtree cudgel and . . . falls to rating of them as if they were dogs. Bunyan. Cudgel play, a fight or sportive contest with cudgels. -- To cross the cudgels, to fo…

f a sleeve turned back from the hand. He would visit his mistress in a morning gown, band,short cuffs, and a peaked beard. Arbuthnot.

A small or short course. Upon a curricle in this world depends a long course of the next. Sir T. Browne.

r the like) with a currycomb and brush; to comb, as a horse, in order to make clean. Your short horse is soon curried. Beau. & FL.

Characterized by exessive brevity; short; rudely concise; as, curt limits; a curt answer. The curt, yet comprehensive reply. W. Irving.

To cut off the end or tail, or any part, of; to shorten; to abridge; to diminish; to reduce. I, that am curtailed of this fair proportion. Shak. Our incomes have been curtailed; his salary has been doubled. Macualay.

og of a person not qualified to course, which, by the forest laws, must have its tail cut short, partly as a mark, and partly from a notion that the tail is necessary to a dog in running; hence, a dog not fit for sporting. Hope is a curtail dog in some affairs. Shak.

A horse with a docked tail; hence, anything cut short. [Obs] Nares.

Shortened or reduced; -- said of the distance of a planet from the sun or earth, as measured in the plane of the ecliptic, or the distance from the sun or earth to that point where a perpendicular, let fall from the planet upon the plane of the ecliptic, meets the ecliptic. Curtate cycloid. (Math.) See Cycloid.…

to pieces. (b) To slaughter; as, to cut an army to pieces. -- To cut a play (Drama), to shorten it by leaving out passages, to adapt it for the stage. -- To cut rates (Railroads, etc.), to reduce the charges for transportation below the rates established between competing lines. -- To cut short, to arrest or check…

That which cuts off or shortens, as a nearer passage or road.

A short, heavy, curving sword, used in the navy. See Curtal ax. Cutlass fish, (Zoöl.), a peculiar, long, thin, marine fish (Trichirus lepturus) of the southern United States and West Indies; -- called also saber fish, silver eel, and, improperly, swordfish.