Etymology

curtail

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Today it means: To cut short the tail of (an animal). Full definition →

Old French courtault ← Latin curtus
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The story

  1. Latin · derived fromcurtus
  2. Old French · derived fromcourtault“which has been shortened”
  3. English todaycurtail

Alteration of curtal, from Old French courtault (“which has been shortened”), itself from court (“short”) (from Latin curtus) + -ault

Words from the same roots

Latincurtus all →

curtcurtanakirtle

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.