different between curtain vs scrim

English

Etymology

From Middle English curteyn, corteyn, cortyn, cortine, from Old French cortine, from Medieval Latin c?rt?na (“curtain”), from Latin cohors (“court, enclosure”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?k??tn?/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?k?tn?/, [?k??n?]
• Rhymes: -??(r)t?n
• Homophone: Kirton

Noun

curtain (plural curtains)

1. A piece of cloth covering a window, bed, etc. to offer privacy and keep out light.

   • Thus the red damask curtains which now shut out the fog-laden, drizzling atmosphere of the Marylebone Road, had cost a mere song, and yet they might have been warranted to last another thirty years. A great bargain also had been the excellent Axminster carpet which covered the floor; as, again, the arm-chair in which Bunting now sat forward, staring into the dull, small fire.

2. A similar piece of cloth that separates the audience and the stage in a theater.
3. (theater, by extension) The beginning of a show; the moment the curtain rises.

   He took so long to shave his head that we arrived 45 minutes after curtain and were denied late entry.

4. (fortifications) The flat area of wall which connects two bastions or towers; the main area of a fortified wall.
   • , Folio Society, 2006, vol.1, p.220:

     Captain Rense, beleagring the Citie of Errona for us, […] caused a forcible mine to be wrought under a great curtine of the walles […].

5. (euphemistic, also "final curtain", sometimes in the plural) Death.
   • 1979, Monty Python, Always Look on the Bright Side of Life

     For life is quite absurd / And death's the final word / You must always face the curtain with a bow.

6. (architecture) That part of a wall of a building which is between two pavilions, towers, etc.
7. (obsolete, derogatory) A flag; an ensign.

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

curtain (third-person singular simple present curtains, present participle curtaining, simple past and past participle curtained)

1. To cover (a window) with a curtain; to hang curtains.
   • 1985, Carol Shields, "Dolls, Dolls, Dolls, Dolls" in The Collected Stories, Random House Canada, 2004, p. 163,

     The window, softly curtained with dotted swiss, became the focus of my desperate hour-by-hour attention.

2. (figuratively) To hide, cover or separate as if by a curtain.
   • c. 1593, William Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus, Act II, Scene 2, [2]

     And, after conflict such as was supposed / The wandering prince and Dido once enjoy'd, / When with a happy storm they were surprised / And curtain'd with a counsel-keeping cave, / We may, each wreathed in the other's arms, / Our pastimes done, possess a golden slumber;

   • 1840, Percy Bysshe Shelley, "A Defence of Poetry" [3]

     But poetry in a more restricted sense expresses those arrangements of language, and especially metrical language, which are created by that imperial faculty; whose throne is curtained within the invisible nature of man.

   • 1958, Ovid, The Metamorphoses, translated by Horace Gregory, New York: Viking, Book IV, Perseus, p. 115,

     He saw a rock that pierced the shifting waters / As they stilled, now curtained by the riding / Of the waves, and leaped to safety on it.

   • 2003, A. B. Yehoshua, The Liberated Bride (2001), translated by Hillel Halkin, Harcourt, Part 2, Chapter 17, p. 115,

     But bleakness still curtained the gray horizon.

Synonyms

• becurtain

Translations

See also

• blind
• drape
• curtain on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• turacin

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /sk??m/
• Rhymes: -?m

Etymology 1

Attested since the end of the 18th century. Origin unknown.

In one of the earliest mentions, "The Statistical Account of Scotland", 1793, by John Sinclair, page 593, we read in a paragraph devoted to weavers: "Besides these, they are now much employed in working a thin kind of coarse linen called Silesias, vulgarly Scrims, whereof each piece is 27 or 30 inches broad".

Noun

scrim (countable and uncountable, plural scrims)

1. A kind of light cotton or linen fabric, often woven in openwork patterns, -- used for curtains, etc,.
2. A large military scarf, usually camouflage coloured and used for concealment when not used as a scarf.
3. A woven, nonwoven or knitted fabric composed of continuous strands of material used for reinforcing or strengthening membranes.
4. (theater) A theater drop that appears opaque when a scene in front is lighted and transparent or translucent when a scene in back is lighted.
5. (photography) A sheet of gauze etc. used to reduce the intensity of light.
6. Thin canvas glued on the inside of panels to prevent shrinking, checking, etc.

Translations

Verb

scrim (third-person singular simple present scrims, present participle scrimming, simple past and past participle scrimmed)

1. (photography) To use a scrim.

Etymology 2

From scrimmage.

Noun

scrim (plural scrims)

1. (online gaming) A practice match between one or more organized teams usually in preparation for a more competitive format, such as a tournament.
   • 2016, Blog of Legends, "The Gap hasn’t closed: Comparing the LCS and LCK at Worlds":

     As a team, the players decided to focus less on streaming (a major source of income) and more on in-house scrims, VOD review and practice, hoping to become a better team.

Verb

scrim (third-person singular simple present scrims, present participle scrimming, simple past and past participle scrimmed)

1. (online gaming) To participate in a scrim.
   • 2016, The Inquirer, "The EE Blog: EternalEnvy Accuses Former Team, Team Secret, of Delayed Payments and Monetary Indiscretion":

     Accusations of him drinking instead of scrimming with the team, not attending practices at all and playing guitar instead of scrimming surfaced.

Anagrams

• CMIRs, Crims, crims