• vt. 縮減；剪短；剝奪…特權(quán)等

來自PIE*sker, 剪，切，詞源同shear, short. -ault, 貶義后綴，詞源同valiant, 勇敢的，頑固的。比較-ard, 貶義后綴，來自hard, 見bastard. 原指剪短尾巴的馬，拼寫受tail影響俗化。

curtail

curtail: [16] The now defunct English noun curtal meant ‘horse with a docked tail’. It was borrowed in the 16th century from French courtault, a derivative of the adjective court ‘short’. Like English curt [17] this came from Latin curtus ‘cut off, shortened’, which in common with English short and shear, can be traced back to an Indo-European base *ker- or *sker- ‘cut’. In the late 16th century the noun was converted into a verb, originally meaning literally ‘dock a horse’, and the close semantic link with ‘tails’ led to its alteration to curtail.
=> cuirass, curt, shear, shirt, short, skirt

curtail (v.)

late 15c., from Middle French courtault "made short," from court "short" (Old French cort, from Latin curtus; see curt) + -ault pejorative suffix of Germanic origin. Originally curtal; used of horses with docked tails, which probably influenced the spelling in general use; curtal is retained in poetics to describe a "shortened" stanza or poem. Related: Curtailed; curtailing.

1. I told Louie that old age would curtail her activities in time.

我告訴路易，一上年紀(jì)她的活動量就會減少。

來自柯林斯例句

2. NATO plans to curtail the number of troops being sent to the region.

北約計劃縮減派往該地區(qū)的士兵數(shù)量。

來自辭典例句

3. It is necessary to curtail or alter normally coexisting stimuli.

必需消除或改變正常時并存的刺激.

來自辭典例句

4. Again the purpose of this action was to curtail inflation.

此行動的目的在于抑制通貨膨脹.

來自辭典例句

5. In all cases we'll curtail baggage handling.

在任何情況之下,我們要簡化行李的發(fā)送.

來自辭典例句