Curdle

//ˈkɜː.dəl// verb

verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To form curds so that it no longer flows smoothly; to cause to form such curds. (usually said of milk) ambitransitive

    "Too much lemon will curdle the milk in your tea."

  2. 2
    turn from a liquid to a solid mass wordnet
  3. 3
    To clot or coagulate; to cause to congeal, such as through cold. (metaphorically of blood) ambitransitive

    ""Vich Ian Vohr," it said, in a voice that made my very blood curdle, "beware of to-morrow!""

  4. 4
    go bad or sour wordnet
  5. 5
    To cause a liquid to spoil and form clumps so that it no longer flows smoothly. transitive

    "It is enough,' said the agitated Mr. Slurk, pacing to and fro, 'to curdle the ink in one's pen, and induce one to abandon their cause for ever.'"

Show 1 more definition
  1. 6
    turn into curds wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
beat upcakechurnclabberclabberclot

Example

More examples

"Chloe, when she had milked her ewes, and sometimes Daphnis' goats as well, had great difficulty in making the milk curdle, for the gnats were very troublesome and if she flapped them away they stung her."

Etymology

Metathesis of earlier dialectal cruddle, crudle, equivalent to curd + -le (frequentative suffix).

Related phrases

blood-curdling

More for "curdle"

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.