English
recurve
Recurve comes from Latin recurvō ‘to bend backwards’, and goes back to curvus ‘bent, crooked, curved’.
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEcurvus‘bent, crooked, curved’
- Latin, derivedc. 75 BCE–200 CEcurvo‘to crook, bend, bow, curve’
- Latin, derivedc. 75 BCE–200 CErecurvō‘to bend backwards’
- Englishearliest quotation 1934recurve
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed
Earlier history uncertain.
Lineage
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEcurvus‘bent, crooked, curved’
- Latin, derivedc. 75 BCE–200 CEcurvo‘to crook, bend, bow, curve’
- Latin, derivedc. 75 BCE–200 CErecurvō‘to bend backwards’
- Englishearliest quotation 1934recurve
Earliest quotation: 1934, Ivan Ray Tannehill, The Hurricane: “Nearly all of the storms which originate in the…”
Linked words
through Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- ‘to cut off, sever’
short, across, card, cross, share, cancer, screen, shirt, score, circle, crucial, circuit, skirt, carnival, scare, circulation, scar, circus, cancellation, scrutiny, shrine, circa, corona, crest, shear, scorpion, incarceration, carnage, raffle, carcinoma, corolla, scorn, shred, crux, shard, circulate, carnal, cirque, riddance, shrewd, 118 more
through Proto-Italic *korwos
through Latin curvus ‘bent, crooked, curved’
Today it means
noun A type of knife blade shape that involves several curves including a concave curve on a portion of the edge, resulting in a belly that is lower than the handle bottom.
Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.
Etymograph / Latin curvus / recurve