curtail
curtail
Definition
cur·tail (kər tāl′)
cur·tail′·ment noun
curtail
Synonyms
curtail
Usage Examples
Object
- liberty: Berlin then goes on to consider why Mill thinks men want to curtail the liberties of others.
- freedom: The only problem now is that the Government has managed to curtail the freedoms of the rest of us for no apparent reason.
- spread: Our planning policies would curtail the spread of out-of-town malls.
- spending: This when, because of high unemployment, the need is not to curtail spending on social projects but to expand it.
- debate: The moderator will need to be a strong chairman to curtail debate about how errors should be corrected.
- speech: It can be revived at any moment and used to curtail free speech.
Subject
- weather: For the Poole promotion it was the second time in three years their attempts to stage the event were curtailed by inclement weather.
Preposition: as
- result: In September 2000, shooting commenced, but was rapidly curtailed as a result of floods and an injury affecting Jean Rochefort.
Adjective complement
- due: Our work on guidelines for OFSTED inspections of libraries supporting Initial Teacher Training programs was curtailed due to work being carried out by SCONUL.
Modifying Another Word
- severely: These factors severely curtailed plans to explore on foot.
- drastically: Immediately, dozens of commercially produced textbooks had their shelf lives drastically curtailed.
- abruptly: Their conversation is abruptly curtailed by the entrance of Harry, a child genius who wants to know the address of the student house.
- sharply: The Popular Party's government also managed to sharply curtail the terrorist activities of the Basque pro-independence ETA group.
- seriously: The motion proposed by the NEC will seriously curtail democracy, which is central to integrating students into the national union.
- dramatically: My lack of mobility and general state of ill health has meant a less materialistic Festive Season as shopping has been dramatically curtailed.
Used with why or when
- when: Her active lifestyle and successful sporting career was curtailed when diagnosed with a degenerative disease during her teenage years.
- what: That is my major point because I have had to curtail what I wanted to say.
Preposition: in
- condition: The weather Racing may be canceled or curtailed in extreme weather conditions which would make driving dangerous.
- order: Tony Blair argued that civil liberties needed to be curtailed in order to protect our security.
Preposition: by
- weather: For the Poole promotion it was the second time in three years their attempts to stage the event were curtailed by inclement weather.
Browse dictionary entries near curtail
- curtailment
- curtain
- curtain call
- curtain lecture
- curtain raiser
- curtain speech
- curtain wall
- curtal
- curtal ax
- curtate
