curve

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A line that deviates from straightness in a smooth, continuous fashion.
2. n. A surface that deviates from planarity in a smooth, continuous fashion.
3. n. Something characterized by such a line or surface, especially a rounded line or contour of the human body.
4. n. A relatively smooth bend in a road or other course.
5. n. A line representing data on a graph.
6. n. A trend derived from or as if from such a graph: "Once again, the politicians are behind the curve” ( Ted Kennedy).
7. n. A graphic representation showing the relative performance of individuals as measured against each other, used especially as a method of grading students in which the assignment of grades is based on predetermined proportions of students.
8. n. Mathematics The graph of a function on a coordinate plane.
9. n. Mathematics The intersection of two surfaces in three dimensions.
10. n. Mathematics The graph of the solutions to any equation of two variables.
11. n. Baseball A curve ball.
12. n. Slang Something that is unexpected or designed to trick or deceive.
13. v. To move in or take the shape of a curve: The path curves around the lake.
14. v. To cause to curve. See Synonyms at bend¹.
15. v. Baseball To pitch a curve ball to.
16. v. To grade (students, for example) on a curve.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. Bending; crooked; curved.
2. n. A continuous bending; a flexure without angles; usually, as a concrete noun, a one-way geometrical locus which may be conceived as described by a point moving along a line round which as axis turns a plane, while the line rotates in the plane round the point. The curve is at the same time the envelop of the plane and of the line. Geometers understand a curve as something capable of being defined by an equation or equations, or otherwise described in general terms, It may thus have nodes, cusps, and other singularities, but must not be broken in a way which cannot be precisely defined without the use of special numbers. Curves are often employed in physics and statistics to represent graphically the changes in value of certain physical or statistical quantities: as, the energy curve of the solar spectrum; the isothermal line or curve; the curve of population.
3. n. Anything continuously bent.
4. n. A draftsman's instrument for forming curved figures.
5. n. In base-ball, the course of a ball so pitched that it does not pass in a straight line from the pitcher to the catcher, but makes a deflection in the air other than the ordinary one caused by the force of gravity: as, it was difficult to gage the curves of the pitcher. An in curve is one that deflects from the straight line toward the batter; an out curve, away from the batter. A drop deflects downward, and a rise or up curve upward.
6. To bend; cause to take the shape of a curve; crook; inflect.
7. To have or assume a curved or flexed form: as, to curve inward.

Wiktionary

1. adj. obsolete Bent without angles; crooked; curved.
2. n. A gentle bend, such as in a road.
3. n. A simple figure containing no straight portions and no angles; a curved line.
4. n. A grading system based on the scale of performance of a group used to normalize a right-skewed grade distribution (with more lower scores) into a bell curve, so that more can receive higher grades, regardless of their actual knowledge of the subject.
5. n. analytic geometry A continuous map from a one-dimensional space to a multidimensional space.
6. n. geometry A one-dimensional figure of non-zero length; the graph of a continuous map from a one-dimensional space.
7. n. algebraic geometry An algebraic curve; a polynomial relation of the planar coordinates.
8. n. topology A one-dimensional continuum.
9. n. informal The attractive shape of a woman's body.
10. v. transitive To bend; to crook.
11. v. transitive To cause to swerve from a straight course.
12. v. intransitive To bend or turn gradually from a given direction.
13. v. To grade on a curve (bell curve of a normal distribution).

GNU Webster's 1913

1. adj. Bent without angles; crooked; curved.
2. n. A bending without angles; that which is bent; a flexure.
3. n. (Geom.) A line described according to some low, and having no finite portion of it a straight line.
4. v. To bend; to crook; ; to cause to swerve from a straight course.
5. v. To bend or turn gradually from a given direction.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a line on a graph representing data
2. v. bend or cause to bend
3. v. turn sharply; change direction abruptly
4. n. the property possessed by the curving of a line or surface
5. n. curved segment (of a road or river or railroad track etc.)
6. n. the trace of a point whose direction of motion changes
7. v. extend in curves and turns
8. v. form an arch or curve
9. v. form a curl, curve, or kink
10. n. a pitch of a baseball that is thrown with spin so that its path curves as it approaches the batter