Meanings
plural kerbstones · alternative US curbstone
- UKA paving stone that forms part of a kerb.
Gabriel often saw him on the streets, playing on the curbstone with other boys his age.
1953, James Baldwin, Go Tell It on the Mountain, New York, N.Y.: Knopf, →OCLC, part 2 (The Prayers of the Saints)1 more example
You see this creature with her kerbstone English: the English that will keep her in the gutter to the end of her days. Well, sir, in three months I could pass that girl off as a duchess at an ambassador’s garden party.
1912 (date written), [George] Bernard Shaw, “Pygmalion”, in Androcles and the Lion, Overruled, Pygmalion, London: Constable and Company, published 1916, →OCLC, Act I, page 115
Synonyms & antonyms
Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.
Origin
- Englishkerb
- Proto-Indo-European*steh₂-
- Proto-Indo-European*steyh₂-
- Proto-Indo-European*stóyh₂nos
- Proto-Germanic*stainaz
- Proto-West Germanic*stain
- Old Englishstān
- Middle Englishston
- Englishstone
- Englishkerbstone
Exocentric compound of kerb + stone.
Full word history & related roots →Translations
Portuguese lancil
- lanciltype of paving stone
Cite this entry
kerbstone. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/kerbstone
“kerbstone.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/kerbstone. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “kerbstone,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/kerbstone.
Source: kerbstone on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.