Home › Glossary › Letter C

Curtain

Domesticity
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A hanging fabric that controls light, privacy, and the view from a room.

Detailed Definition
In poetry, curtains can breathe in a draft, glow at dawn, or close against watchful streets. They create a soft boundary that differs from a wall: one can draw them aside, conceal a room, or let light filter through. Their patterns and folds may reflect a household's taste, age, or poverty. Poets use curtains to explore privacy, performance, mourning, desire, and the partial knowledge people have of one another.
Example
Example in poetry:
“The curtain lifted once, then settled,” gives the room a sense of breath and hidden movement; A poet might use drawn curtains to suggest privacy, secrecy, or grief; “Morning threaded gold through the curtain’s lace,” uses light to transform a familiar household object; Opening a curtain can act as a small symbolic gesture of awakening or renewed hope
Additional Notes
A curtain is both practical object and flexible metaphor. Opening it may imply revelation, performance, morning, or exposure; drawing it may imply privacy, secrecy, grief, or protection. Its movement in wind can animate an otherwise still room, while its fabric and pattern may reveal taste, history, or social setting.
Other Meanings of “Curtain”
Also Known As
Drape Drapery Window Hanging
Skip to main content