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Curvet   Listen
noun
Curvet  n.  
1.
(Man.) A particular leap of a horse, when he raises both his fore legs at once, equally advanced, and, as his fore legs are falling, raises his hind legs, so that all his legs are in the air at once.
2.
A prank; a frolic.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Curvet" Quotes from Famous Books



... round, and Rena was lifted into the buggy. Wain seized the reins, and under his skillful touch the pretty mare began to prance and curvet with restrained impatience. Wain could not resist the opportunity to show off before the party, which included Mary B.'s entire family and several other neighbors, who had gathered to see ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt

... added that in his younger days he had heard from a person of great parts, and had since profited by it, that ordinary poets are like adders,—the tail blunt and the body rough, and the whole reptile cold-blooded and sluggish: "whereas we," he subjoined, "leap and caracole and curvet, and are as warm as velvet, and as sleek as satin, and as perfumed as a Naples fan, in every part of us; and the end of our poems is as pointed as a perch's back-fin, and it requires as much nicety to pick it up as a needle{38a} at ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor

... leap, jump, hop, spring, bound, vault, saltation[obs3]. ance, caper; curvet, caracole; gambade|, gambado|; capriole, demivolt[obs3]; buck, buck jump; hop skip and jump; falcade[obs3]. kangaroo, jerboa; chamois, goat, frog, grasshopper, flea; buckjumper[obs3]; wallaby. V. leap; jump up, jump over the moon; hop, spring, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... more Mr. Dale resumed his journey. He had performed about three miles, when the sound of wheels behind made him turn his head, and he perceived a chaise driven very fast, while out of the windows thereof dangled strangely a pair of human legs. The pad began to curvet as the post horses rattled behind, and the Parson had only an indistinct vision of a human face supplanting these human legs. The traveller peered out at him as he whirled by—saw Mr. Dale tossed up and down on the saddle, and cried out, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various

... "rosy" with "posy," and "heart" with "part," and cudgelled his brains for images and conceits that would express in some scant measure the charms of pretty Mistress Dorothy Dawe. But his lines would not prance and curvet as he wished them to do; they laboured along in a heavy, cart-horse fashion, so that Johnnie at length reluctantly recalled his wandering wits to the consideration of the practical things of life. And, immediately upon doing so, he became conscious of the presence ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan

... put out his under lip, in a sort of angry embarrassment, and then, spurring his great horse into a curvet, said,— ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... said the young man, "or you will be thrown off—" for the irritated animal began to curvet around in all directions, manifesting a strong determination to go back to his stable, instead of ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson

... pupil, the youthful earl of the empire. To ride with stirrups or none, to mount from the near-side or off-side (Which still is required in the trooper who rides in the Austrian army), To ride with bridle or none, on a saddle Turkish or English, To force your horse to curvet, pirouette, dance on his haunches, And whilst dancing to lash with his feet, and suggest an effectual hinting 60 To the enemy's musqueteers to clear the road for the hinter: Or again, if you want a guide by night, in a dangerous highway Beset with the enemies' marksmen and ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... the saddle, until a large stone showed its head at the side of the road. As they passed, he ran up the stone and was in the saddle before the animal realised that he was beaten, and when he did, it seemed to humble him to that degree that he never attempted even a curvet. ...
— Twixt France and Spain • E. Ernest Bilbrough

... by the spur, their steeds plunge and curvet, apparently progressing at a rapid pace, but in reality gaining ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid

... answered it and said, 'What matter, so I help him back to life?' Then far away with good Sir Torre for guide Rode o'er the long backs of the bushless downs To Camelot, and before the city-gates Came on her brother with a happy face Making a roan horse caper and curvet For pleasure all about a field of flowers: Whom when she saw, 'Lavaine,' she cried, 'Lavaine, How fares my lord Sir Lancelot?' He amazed, 'Torre and Elaine! why here? Sir Lancelot! How know ye my lord's name is Lancelot?' But when the maid ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson

... night-wind; but on and on! the forest cannot be worse than a world defied. They drain a cup of milk apiece and they spur, for this is the way to the golden Indian land of the planted vine and the lover's godship.—Ludicrous! There is no getting farther than the cup of milk with Marko. They curvet and caper to be forward unavailingly. It should be Alvan to bring her through the forest to the planted vine in sunland. Her splendid prose Alvan could do what the sprig of poetry can but suggest. Never would malicious fairy in old woman's form have offered Alvan a cup of milk to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... the Convent, and from sheer wantonness I was making my Waler plunge and curvet across the road as I tickled it with ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling

... soon as he had subdued the ardour of his frolicsome little steed to a steadier gait, varied only by an occasional curvet, "yesterday I was made to read in the Chronicles of the Kings of Scotland, and lo, it was the Douglas did this and the Douglas said that, till I cried out upon Master Kennedy, 'Enough of Douglases—I am a Stewart. Read me of the Stewarts.' Then gave Master Kennedy a ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett

... Gut—a view of the sea unbroken hence to the horizon; a patch of water framed on three sides by straight walls and on the fourth by the sky-line; a miniature ocean across which the drifters sail to the western offing, and the little boats curvet ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds

... earwig set, Yet scarce he on his back could get, So oft and high he did curvet, Ere he himself could settle: He made him turn, and stop, and bound, To gallop, and to trot the round, He scarce could stand on any ground, He was so full ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick

... low, and made her pony curvet gayly. But her amusement was soon interrupted, for up came Anton. "It is really too bad," whispered he, angry in good earnest. "You expose yourself to familiar observations, which are not ill ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag



Words linked to "Curvet" :   jump, spring, bound



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