See Also: ROC curve(medicine)
LM curve(finance)
J-curve(finance)
H and D curve(medicine)
curve(1)(dictionary)
curve(2)(dictionary)
Curve(medicine)
IS curve(finance)
curve(encyclopedia)
S-curve(dictionary)

curve(1) (iou)



curve adjective & noun. LME.
[Latin curvus bent, curved.]
A. adjective. Curved. Now rare or obsolete exc. as passing into attrib. use of the noun. LME.
b. noun.
A line of which no part is straight. L17.
geodesic curve, Jordan curve, loxodromic curve, etc.
b. A (straight or curved) line showing how one quantity varies with another, e.g. time; a graph. M19.
characteristic curve, J-curve, etc.
Listener The population curve has slowed down.
A curved form, outline, etc.; a curved thing or part; spec. the curving line of a woman's figure (usu. in pl.). E18.
P. G. Wodehouse I can remember the days..when every other girl you met..had as many curves as a Scenic Railway. P. Theroux The track was perfectly straightnot a curve in it anywhere.
A template used for drawing curved lines. Also French curve. L19.
Baseball. In full curve ball. A ball which deviates from the path it would otherwise take, because of spin put on it by the pitcher. L19.
A parenthesis, a round bracket. US. E20.
Comb.: curve ball: see sense 4 above; curve-fitting the finding of (the equation of) the curve which most closely represents the points on a graph.
curveless adjective E19.
curvesome adjective (of a woman or a woman's figure) shapely M20.