curfew
noun
Pam CarrollWomen's Wear DailySusan Soo-Hyun Chung
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In medieval Europe, a bell rang every evening at a fixed hour, and townspeople were required by law to cover or extinguish their hearth fires. It was the "cover fire" bell, or, as it was referred to in Anglo-French, coverfeu (from the French verb meaning "to cover," and the word for "fire"). By the time the English version, curfew, appeared, the authorities no longer regulated hearth fires, but an evening bell continued to be rung for various purposes—whether to signal the close of day, an evening burial, or enforcement of some other evening regulation. This "bell ringing at evening" became the first English sense of curfew. Not infrequently, the regulation signaled by the curfew involved regulating people's movement in the streets, and this led to the modern senses of the word.
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What is the origin of curfew?
During the Middle Ages, houses in European towns were often made of wood and were close together, and fires could quickly spread from house to house. To prevent this, people were required to put out or cover their hearth fires by a certain time in the evening. A bell was rung as a signal when the time had come. In early French this signal was called coverfeu, a compound of covrir, meaning “to cover,” and feu, “fire.” Even when hearth fires were no longer regulated, many towns had other rules that called for the ringing of an evening bell, and this signal was still called coverfeu. A common coverfeu regulation required people to be off the streets by a given time. That was the meaning of the word when it was borrowed into Middle English as curfew.
Examples of curfew in a Sentence
Patrick Smith, NBC News, 4 Nov. 2024
Members of Greenpeace killed climate deniers, and police shot curfew breakers.
—Charles Bethea, The New Yorker, 4 Nov. 2024
Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer has implemented a curfew of 1 a.m. in Downton Orlando until November 8.
—David Faris, Newsweek, 4 Nov. 2024
Police said a curfew from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. will be in place until next Friday.
—Dalia Faheid, CNN, 2 Nov. 2024
See all Example Sentences for curfew 
Dictionary Entries Near curfew
Cite this Entry
“Curfew.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/curfew. Accessed 30 Nov. 2024.
Copy CitationKids Definition
curfew
noun
Middle English curfew "an order to be off the streets at a certain time," from early French coverfeu "signal to cover a hearth fire, curfew," from covrir "to cover" and feu "fire"
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