I Swear English › Vocabulary A–Z › Curtail
What does ‘Curtail’ mean?
Related forms: Formal and suitable for business or speeches
To cut something short. To stop a planned activity before time due to some unforeseen event. You can curtail a meeting, a speech, an inspection,or a lesson with the meaning of cut short. If it refers to a timetable or an educational program it can mean a reduction of the number of planned services or classes. Curtailment (uncountable noun). The act of cutting something short.
“The umpires curtailed the cricket match by an hour due to bad light”.
“The duration of next week's meeting has been curtail so that it will only last thirty minutes instead of the habitual hour”.
“"As tome os running short it seems that I need to curtail the speech I had planned."”.
“It is also possible to use curtail in an ironic or humorous way in informal situations”.
“"Mate, I thought you were curtailing your alcohol intake." (mate defines the conversation as causal or informal and curtail is too formal, therefore it is ironic)”.
Watch: ‘Curtail’ explained
Video transcript
Hi, there. C is for Curtail. To Curtail. To cut short the duration of something. OK, notice curtail is a formal word. Yes. So it would be good for a speech or something like that, but probably not so good among friends if you're having a drink. OK, to curtail, to cut short the amount of time something lasts. For example, you could curtail a meeting. OK, it's supposed to be one hour, you cut it short, you curtail it. Forty five minutes. You can curtail a lesson, a course of lessons, a speech. When you give a speech you could curtail it. You cut short the programmed time. OK, it can also be used metaphorically about activities. For example, the police try to curtail the activities of criminals. This is either very formal or a bit ironic. OK. We could use to curtail ironically er... in various ways. Um... I don't know... if somebody's talking in class I could say "Please could you curtail your conversation". Stop talking. OK. Um... to curtail, to cut short. So there you go. C is for to curtail. Notice, there's a noun as well. Curtailment. OK. Erm... this is even more formal than curtail. So, see you in another video. Bye for now.