Curly means growing or lying in rings and waves rather than straight. Curly hair, a curly tail, curly leaves.
It is used most about hair, where curly sits between wavy and coily, and the type of curl is a whole vocabulary of its own. It also describes anything that spirals: a curly tail, curly fries, curly brackets — which is the usual British name for the braces used in programming. Note curl, curler, curly-haired; and curly kale, which is the ordinary supermarket kind.
1adjectivecurlyGrowing or lying in rings and waves.
“The baby has soft, curly hair just like her father's.”
curly is a quality of curling.
Proto-Germanic
*kruzlǭ — bent or crooked object, curl
Middle Dutch
crul
Middle English
crulle — curled, curly
English
curl
English, today
curly
Built from
From curl + -y. curl comes from of Middle English crulle (“curled, curly”), of uncertain origin but probably from an unrecorded Old English word or from Middle Dutch crul, crulle (“curl”), ultimately from Proto-Germanic kruzlǭ (“bent or crooked object, curl”), connected to krūsą (“curl”), of unknown origin. Cognate with stq Krulle (“curl, lock”), West Frisian krul (“curl”), Dutch krul (“curl”), German Low German Krull (“curl”), dialectal German Krolle (“curl”), Danish krølle (“curl”), Norwegian Bokmål krøll (“curl”). Related also to stq Kruus (“curl”), German kraus (“frizzy, crumpled, curly”), Danish krus (“curl”), Swedish krusa (“to crimp, curl”). Compare also Gothic 𐌺𐍂𐌹𐌿𐍃𐍄𐌰𐌽 (“to grind, crush, gnash”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA