English Dictionary

curvet

/kɜːˈvɛt/

verb

(intransitive) Of a horse or, by extension, another animal: to leap about, to frolic. / (transitive) To cause to leap about, dart or jump. / (of a bird) To fly or swim with darting movements.

The horse began to curvet in the field.

意味（1）

(intransitive) Of a horse or, by extension, another animal: to leap about, to frolic.

Sometime he trots, as if he told the steps, / With gentle majesty and modest pride; / Anon he rears upright, curvets and leaps, / As who should say, 'Lo! thus my strength is tried; / And this I do to captivate the eye / Of the fair breeder that is standing by.'

意味（2）

(transitive) To cause to leap about, dart or jump.

[…] I could no more travel the same Path, again and again, than I could have Patience to mount a managed Horse, in the Riding-House, and curvet it in the same Spot, for three Hours together.

意味（3）

(of a bird) To fly or swim with darting movements.

[…] flights of small, low-flying brown doves chased one another to and fro, and bee-eaters, emerald-green, curvetted like slow swallows.

意味（4）

(figuratively) (of a person) To prance; to caper, frolic.

He curvetted back into the living-room […]

意味（5）

(figuratively) (of an object) To jump, skip, shake.

[…] you must know that when the second iron is thrown overboard, it thenceforth becomes a dangling, sharp-edged terror, skittishly curvetting about both boat and whale, entangling the lines, or cutting them, and making a prodigious sensation in all directions.