ppl. a. Also 6–7 curtalled, etc. [f. CURTAIL v. and CURTAL sb. + -ED.]
1. Made a curtal; having the tail docked or cut off.
1591. Florio, Sec. Fruites, 43. Another [horse] broken winded, curtald, lame, blinde, foundred.
1603. Holland, Plutarch’s Mor., 419. My curtailed dog.
1610. Fletcher, Faithf. Shepherdess, To Rdr. With cur-tailed dogs in strings.
1870. Swinburne, Ess. & Stud. (1875), 101. The yelp of curtailed foxes in every generation is the same.
† b. transf. Shaped at the end as if cut off short.
1575. Gascoigne, Wks. (1587), 154. A curtolde slipper and a short silke hose.
1592. Greene, Def. Conny Catch. (1859), 33. A … peake pendent, either sharpe … or curtold lyke the broad ende of a Moule spade.
1601. Holland, Pliny, II. 218. The smallest roots of Ellebor, such as be … curtelled, and not sharp pointed in the bottom.
2. Cut short; shortened, abridged; diminished in length, extent, power, privilege.
1561. T. Norton, Calvin’s Inst., III. 217. But let vs heare their curtalled argumentes.
c. 1620. S. Smith, Serm. (1866), I. 156. With the curtailed skirts of David’s ambassadors [cf. 2 Sam. x. 4].
1641. Milton, Reform., I. (1851), 13. They must mew their feathers, and their pounces, and make but curttail’d Bishops of them.
1879. Lubbock, Addr. Pol. & Educ., x. 205. According to the most curtailed chronology.
† 3. ? Short-skirted: cf. CURTAL 3 d. Obs.
1624. Fletcher, Wife for Month, II. vi. They are curtall’d queanes in hired clothes.
Hence Curtailedly adv., shortly, abbreviatedly.
1658. W. Burton, Itin. Anton., 167. The name thereof … perhaps … was written curtail’dly.
