Definition of Curtain

Curtain

A hanging screen intended to darken or conceal, and admitting of being drawn back or up, and reclosed at pleasure; esp., drapery of cloth or lace hanging round a bed or at a window; in theaters, and like places, a movable screen for concealing the stage.

That part of the rampart and parapet which is between two bastions or two gates. See Illustrations of Ravelin and Bastion.

That part of a wall of a building which is between two pavilions, towers, etc.

A flag; an ensign; -- in contempt.

To inclose as with curtains; to furnish with curtains.

Related Definitions:

Admitting, An, And, As, At, Back, Bastion, Bed, Being, Between, Building, Cloth, Conceal, Concealing, Contempt, Darken, Drapery, Drawn, Ensign, Flag, For, Furnish, Hanging, In, Inclose, Intended, Is, Lace, Like, Movable, Of, Or, Parapet, Part, Pleasure, Rampart, Ravelin, Round, Screen, See, Stage, That, The, To, Two, Up, Wall, Which, Window, With

Curtain Quotations

From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.
Winston Churchill

To be admitted to Nature's hearth costs nothing. None is excluded, but excludes himself. You have only to push aside the curtain.
Henry David Thoreau

I didn't like the play, but then I saw it under adverse conditions - the curtain was up.
Groucho Marx

My greatest trouble is getting the curtain up and down.
T. S. Eliot

Who has not sat before his own heart's curtain? It lifts: and the scenery is falling apart.
Rainer Maria Rilke

From behind the Iron Curtain, there are signs that tyranny is in trouble and reminders that its structure is as brittle as its surface is hard.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

Who's not sat tense before his own heart's curtain.
James Russell Lowell

A good essay must have this permanent quality about it; it must draw its curtain round us, but it must be a curtain that shuts us in not out.
Virginia Woolf

The critic leaves at curtain fall To find, in starting to review it, He scarcely saw the play at all For starting to review it.
E. B. White

Once the curtain is raised, the actor is ceases to belong to himself. He belongs to his character, to his author, to his public. He must do the impossible to identify himself with the first, not to betray the second, and not to disappoint the third.
Sarah Bernhardt

I would rather the man who presents something for my consideration subject me to a zephyr of truth and a gentle breeze of responsibility rather than blow me down with a curtain of hot wind.
Grover Cleveland

God continues to lift the curtain and allow the enemies of America to give us probably what we deserve.
Jerry Falwell

I always liked the magic of poetry but now I'm just starting to see behind the curtain of even the best poets, how they've used, tried and tested craft to create the illusion. Wonderful feeling of exhilaration to finally be there.
David Knopfler

I don't display my plaques and honors. They are hidden behind a black curtain in my work room at home.
John Cameron

It's not scary to make a horror film because you get to pull back the curtain and see that none of it's real. When you're watching one, the terror bombards you.
Josh Hartnett

I never went to business school. I was just bumbling through a lot of my life. I was like the guy behind the curtain in The Wizard of Oz.
David Geffen

When we went on the air, I didn't want to be interrupted for an act-one curtain.
Norman Lear

Twilight drops her curtain down, and pins it with a star.
Lucy Maud Montgomery

An opera begins long before the curtain goes up and ends long after it has come down. It starts in my imagination, it becomes my life, and it stays part of my life long after I've left the opera house.
Maria Callas

I've had some of the best craft services on independent movies, actually, because they get more creative, generally, with a smaller budget. The work is still the same. I didn't really notice the difference other than I was getting dressed behind a curtain, basically.
Jennifer Beals

I always stayed for the first curtain call and people always said, 'Who's that?' But this got me started in acting.
James Stewart

In these times of the 'Great Recession', we shouldn't be trying to shift the benefits of wealth behind some curtain. We should be celebrating and encouraging people to make as much money as they can. Profits equal tax money. While some people might find it distasteful to pay taxes, I don't. I find it patriotic.
Mark Cuban

Conscience is the window of our spirit, evil is the curtain.
Douglas Horton

This scepticism is the same scepticism I heard a generation ago in the USSR when few thought that a democratic transformation behind the iron curtain was possible.
Natan Sharansky

Curtain! Fast music! Light! Ready for the last finale! Great! The show looks good, the show looks good!
Florenz Ziegfeld

Well, I go to the theater today, and its curtain - there is no curtain in this play; the lights go down and go up - and we start. And I live this character for two hours. There are only two of us in the play. And It's a complete experience.
Eli Wallach

You could get in rehearsals, pre-production, anything that would actually contribute to the understanding of how a film gets made. I actually find those things increase people's interest in a movie and like that better than worrying about showing the tricks behind the curtain.
Jay Roach

People look at me and go, 'You must have it made. You have girls. You have a great life.' It's not true. I mean you pull the curtain away, and you see I'm just as insecure and neurotic and scared and vulnerable as anybody, you know.
John Stamos

But scientists on both sides of the iron curtain played a very significant role in maintaining the momentum of the nuclear arms race throughout the four decades of the Cold War.
Joseph Rotblat

He greatly valued his possessions, chiefly because they were his, and derived genuine pleasure from contemplating a painting, a statuette, a rare lace curtain - no matter what - after he had bought it and placed it among his household gods.
Kate Chopin

More Curtain Quotations

Curtain Translations

curtain in Afrikaans is gordyn
curtain in Danish is gardin
curtain in Dutch is overgordijn, gordijn, scherm, doek
curtain in Finnish is verho
curtain in French is rideau
curtain in German is Vorhang, Gardine
curtain in Italian is cortina, sipario
curtain in Latin is velum
curtain in Norwegian is gardin
curtain in Portuguese is cortina
curtain in Spanish is cortina

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