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To wrinkle, bend, or curl; to shrivel; hence, to contract into a less extent or compass; to gather together; to become compacted. And on a broken reed he still did stay His feeble steps, which shrunk when hard thereon he lay. Spenser. I have not found that water, by mixture of ashes, will shrink or draw into less room.…

A curlew.

epidium Cadamines), a species of peppergrass. -- Spanish curiew (Zoöl.), the long-billed curlew. [U.S.] -- Spanish daggers (Bot.) See Spanish bayonet. -- Spanish elm (Bot.), a large West Indian tree (Cordia Gerascanthus) furnishing hard and useful timber. -- Spanish feretto, a rich reddish brown pigment obtained by…

A spiral; a curl; a whorl; a twist. Dryden.

Of a spiral form; wreathed; curled; serpentine. Hid in the spiry volumes of the snake. Dryden.

The mark aimed at in curling and in quoits.

A stone curlew. See under Stone.

A wig having a tie or ties, or one having some of the curls tied up; also, a wig tied upon the head. Wright. V. Knox.

A little tuft; a curl or artificial lock of hair.

and until 1715; also, any high headdress. Lay trains of amorous intrigues In towers, and curls, and periwigs. Hudibras.

A braid, knot, or curl, of hair; a ringlet. Her yellow hair was braided in a tress. Chaucer. Fair tresses man's imperial race insnare. Pope.

Formed into ringlets or braided; braided; curled. Spenser. Drayton.

A round or curled-up tail; also, a dog with such a tail. Shak.

To rise with a curling motion; to curl upward, as smoke. Longfellow.

To to White curl the waves, and the vexed ocean roars. Pope.

A curly-haired breed of spaniels, naturally very fond of the water.

The European curlew; -- called also awp, whaup, great whaup, and stock whaup.

Any one of several species of small curlews, especially the European species (Numenius phæopus), called also Jack curlew, half curlew, stone curlew, and tang whaup. See Illustration in Appendix. Hudsonian or, Eskimo, whimbreal, the Hudsonian curlew.

The curlew. [Prov. Eng.]

a kind of network, either in imitation of the natural growth, or in abundant and flowing curls, worn to supply a deficiency of natural hair, or for ornament, or according to traditional usage, as a part of an official or professional dress, the latter especially in England by judges and barristers.