kerb

UK/kɜːb/US/kɝb/

nounB1+Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #11,590 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: kerbs

A kerb is the raised stone edge between road and pavement. Step off the kerb, park at the kerb, a dropped kerb.

A dropped kerb is one lowered for wheelchairs, prams and driveways, and parking across one is an offence. Americans spell it curb, which in Britain means to restrain — the two spellings split apart in the nineteenth century.

Definitions of kerb

1nounkerbThe raised stone edge between road and pavement.B1+
“The taxi pulled up at the kerb outside the hotel.”

kerb is an edge.

Also accepted in games: curb

Where it comes from

A variant of curb, from Old French courber, to bend, from Latin curvare. Curve is a relative.

Built from

curb · English — raised border or frame

From curb (“raised border or frame”) mid-17. a doublet of curve.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in In the City

Practise this word

kerb in the wild

Guidance systems can be physical (such as kerbs or guide bars) or remote (such as optical or radio guidance).
Guided bus
A curb (American English) or kerb (British English) is the edge where a raised sidewalk or central median meets a street or other roadway.
Curb
A Kassel kerb is a design of kerb (curb in US English) that features a concave-section that allows for an easier alignment for buses.
Kassel kerb
The kerb was first introduced in the German city of Kassel for the low-floor tram system but has since been adopted for use at traffic stops.
Kassel kerb
The act is known as kerb crawling because the person will typically drive very slowly along the kerbside.
Kerb crawler

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

dropped kerb

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