Curtain vs Certain - What's the difference?
curtain | certain |
A piece of cloth covering a window, bed, etc. to offer privacy and keep out light.
*
A similar piece of cloth that separates the audience and the stage in a theater.
* {{quote-book, year=1905, author=
, title=
, chapter=2 (label) 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:
Death.
* 1979 , (Monty Python), (Always Look on the Bright Side of Life)
(label) That part of a wall of a building which is between two pavilions, towers, etc.
A flag; an ensign.
Sure, positive, not doubting.
(obsolete) Determined; resolved.
* Milton
Not to be doubted or denied; established as a fact.
* Bible, Dan. ii. 45
Actually existing; sure to happen; inevitable.
* Dryden
* Shakespeare
Unfailing; infallible.
* Mead
Fixed or stated; regular; determinate.
* Bible, Ex. xvi. 4
Not specifically named; indeterminate; indefinite; one or some; sometimes used independently as a noun, and meaning certain persons.
* Bible, Luke v. 12
* Macaulay
Having been determined but unspecified. The quality of some particular subject or object which is known by the speaker to have been specifically singled out among similar entities of its class.
* Bible, Acts xxiii. 12
* , title=The Mirror and the Lamp
, chapter=3
As a noun curtain
is a piece of cloth covering a window, bed, etc. to offer privacy and keep out light.As a verb curtain
is to cover (a window) with a curtain; to hang curtains.As an adjective certain is
sure, positive, not doubting.As a determiner certain is
having been determined but unspecified. The quality of some particular subject or object which is known by the speaker to have been specifically singled out among similar entities of its class.curtain
English
Noun
(en noun)- 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.
citation, passage=“H'm !” he said, “so, so—it is a tragedy in a prologue and three acts. I am going down this afternoon to see the curtain fall for the third time on what
- Captain Rense'', beleagring the Citie of ''Errona for us,.
- For life is quite absurd / And death's the final word / You must always face the curtain with a bow.
- (Shakespeare)
Derived terms
* curtain call * curtain-raise * curtain-raiser * final curtainSee also
* blind * drape * (wikipedia "curtain")certain
English
Adjective
(wikipedia certain) (en adjective)- I was certain of my decision.
- However, I with thee have fixed my lot, / Certain to undergo like doom.
- The dream is certain , and the interpretation thereof sure.
- Bankruptcy is the certain outcome of your constant gambling and lending.
- Virtue that directs our ways / Through certain dangers to uncertain praise.
- Death, as the Psalmist saith, is certain to all.
- I have often wished that I knew as certain a remedy for any other distemper.
- The people go out and gather a certain rate every day.
- It came to pass when he was in a certain city.
- About everything he wrote there was a certain natural grace and decorum.
Synonyms
* See alsoAntonyms
* (not doubting) uncertain * (sure to happen) impossible, incidentalDerived terms
* certainlyDeterminer
(en determiner)- Certain of the Jews banded together.
citation, passage=One saint's day in mid-term a certain newly appointed suffragan-bishop came to the school chapel, and there preached on “The Inner Life.”}}
