Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day

curfew


Listen Later

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 13, 2025 is:

curfew • \KER-fyoo\  • noun

Curfew refers to a law or order that requires people to be indoors after a certain time at night, as well as to the period of time when such an order or law is in effect. Chiefly in the United States, curfew is also used to refer to the time set by a parent or caregiver at which a child has to be back home after going out.

// No one is allowed on the streets during the curfew.

// Lana has a 10 o’clock curfew, so we need to bring her home right after the movie.

See the entry >

Examples:

[Lew] Alcindor narrowed his college choice to Michigan, Columbia, St. John’s, and UCLA. He liked Columbia as the chance to attend school walking distance to Harlem and a subway ride to the jazz clubs he had to leave early as a high schooler to make curfew.” — Scott Howard-Cooper, Kingdom on Fire: Kareem, Wooden, Walton, and the Turbulent Days of the UCLA Basketball Dynasty, 2024

Did you know?

Curfews set by parents (and kept or broken by their offspring) do not echo the origins of the word curfew in any discernable way—if they did, they’d need to at least hint at the sound of a bell. When curfew was first used in the 14th century, it referred to the sounding of a bell at evening to alert people that they should cover their hearth fires for the night—a necessary warning, as many European houses in the Middle Ages were close enough to each other that fires could spread easily from one to the next. The word came to English from Anglo-French, in which the signal was called coverfeu, a compound of covrir, meaning “to cover,” and feu, “fire.” Even when hearth fires were no longer regulated, many towns had other rules that called for ringing an evening bell, including one that required people to be off the streets by a given time, a development that granted curfew permission to go out and about with a broader meaning.



...more
View all episodesView all episodes
Download on the App Store

Merriam-Webster's Word of the DayBy Merriam-Webster

  • 4.5
  • 4.5
  • 4.5
  • 4.5
  • 4.5

4.5

1,189 ratings


More shows like Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day

View all
Speak English with ESLPod.com - Learn English Fast by ESLPod.com

Speak English with ESLPod.com - Learn English Fast

2,542 Listeners

TED Talks Daily by TED

TED Talks Daily

11,127 Listeners

Grammar Girl Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing by QuickAndDirtyTips.com

Grammar Girl Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing

2,830 Listeners

Science Quickly by Scientific American

Science Quickly

1,368 Listeners

Learning English Conversations by BBC Radio

Learning English Conversations

1,086 Listeners

Learn English | EnglishClass101.com by EnglishClass101.com

Learn English | EnglishClass101.com

870 Listeners

RealLife English: Learn and Speak Confident, Natural English by RealLife English

RealLife English: Learn and Speak Confident, Natural English

514 Listeners

All Ears English Podcast by Lindsay McMahon and Michelle Kaplan

All Ears English Podcast

2,270 Listeners

Daily Easy English Expression Podcast by Coach Shane

Daily Easy English Expression Podcast

833 Listeners

IELTS Energy English 7+ by Lindsay McMahon, Jessica Beck, Aubrey Carter

IELTS Energy English 7+

426 Listeners

Real English Conversations Podcast – English for Global Professionals | Speak Clearly & Confidently at Work by Real English Conversations: Amy Whitney & Curtis Davies - English Podcast

Real English Conversations Podcast – English for Global Professionals | Speak Clearly & Confidently at Work

411 Listeners

Speak English Now Podcast: Learn English | Speak English without grammar. by Georgiana, founder of SpeakEnglishPodcast.com

Speak English Now Podcast: Learn English | Speak English without grammar.

581 Listeners

American English Podcast by Shana Thompson

American English Podcast

572 Listeners

Confident Business English by Anna Connelly, Anna Connelly.

Confident Business English

145 Listeners

Business English from All Ears English by Lindsay McMahon

Business English from All Ears English

77 Listeners