Curly

//ˈkɝli// adj, name, noun

adj, name, noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    a person or animal with curly hair.
Adjective
  1. 1
    Having curls.
  2. 2
    Curling in a direction, as opposed to straight (quotation marks or apostrophes)
  3. 3
    Complicated and difficult; knotty. Australia

    "Often, the job will throw you a curly problem that will cause the unprepared to fail, so it is best to prepare an investigative plan before starting work."

Adjective
  1. 1
    (of hair) having curls or waves wordnet
Proper Noun
  1. 1
    A nickname for a person with curly hair.
  2. 2
    A nickname for a bald person. humorous
  3. 3
    A male given name.

Synonyms

All synonyms
crispcurledfrizzlykinkedkinkypermed

Example

More examples

"Now I have curly hair, because I had a perm."

Etymology

From curl + -y.

Related phrases

curly apostrophecurly bracecurly bracketcurly cuhcurly friescurly frycurly kalecurly mesquitecurly quotecurly topcurly wigquotation mark

More for "curly"

SynonymsSentencesPronunciationTranslate

Next best steps

Find stronger synonymsSee usage examplesCheck pronunciationBrowse writing guides

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