a. A piece of cloth or similar material suspended by the top so as to admit of being withdrawn sideways, and serving as a screen or hanging for purposes of use or ornament; e.g. to enclose a bed (the earliest English use), to separate one part of a room from another, to regulate the admission of light at a window, to prevent draught at a door or other opening, etc.

b. to draw the curtain: (a) to draw it back or aside, so as to discover what is behind; (b) to draw it forward in front of an object, so as to cover or conceal it. Also figurative.

†c. Applied in the Bible to the skins or pieces of cloth with which a tent or tabernacle was hung; the canvas of a tent.

d. Applied variously to hanging pieces of cloth or fabric: as, a veil, an overhanging shade of a bonnet, an ensign. curtain of mail: the piece of chain-mail hanging from the edge of a helmet of the Saracen type; the camail.

e. plural. A wrinkled effect resembling a draped curtain on a painted or varnished surface. colloquial.

a. In a theatre, etc.: The screen separating the stage from the auditorium, which is drawn up at the beginning and dropped at the end of the play or of a separate act. to call (an actor) before the curtain: to summon him to appear after the curtain falls to mark one's appreciation of his performance. Also in various phrases used figuratively, to drop or raise the curtain, to end or begin an action; the curtain falls, drops, or rises, etc.

b. behind the curtain: ‘behind the scenes’, away from the public view.

c. In various elliptical or allusive uses: (i) = curtain-call n. at Compounds 3; (ii) the finale of a play, act, or scene; also transferred; (iii) = curtain-fall n. at Compounds 3.

d. In plural (also occasionally in singular), the end (cf. sense 2c (iii)). slang.

e. curtain up: the beginning of a performance.

a. transferred and figurative. Anything that covers or hides.

b. Military. (In full curtain of fire, curtain fire.) A concentration of rapid and continuous artillery or machine-gun fire, etc., on a designated line or area, to prevent the advance or retreat of enemy troops, or to clear the way for the combatant's advance. Also, a concentration of fire to block the progress of aircraft.

c. Short for iron curtain n.; also with capital initial. Also used in similar metaphors, esp. implying restriction of information.

a. Fortification. The plain wall of a fortified place; the part of the wall which connects two bastions, towers, gates, or similar structures. complement of the curtain: see complement n. 5f.

b. Architecture. A plain enclosing wall not supporting a roof.

a. In mushrooms or fungi: the velum partiale, a marginal veil hanging from the pileus as a shreddy membrane.

b. In bivalve molluscs: the inner pendent margin of the mantle.

c. In some locks, a circular plate revolving round the keyhole, which closes it up when any instrument is introduced in an attempt to pick the lock.

d. A contrivance consisting of wooden slats which can be rolled up: spec. one of a number of these used to form a dam or weir. Also attributive, as curtain-dam, curtain-valve, curtain-weir.

curtain-cord n.