Where the Kerb Leads

I came across a copy of the rules governing Norwich diocesan churchyards yesterday. It wasn't very exciting, but I did notice that new graves must not be marked by 'kerbs'. This set me wondering how the term 'kerb' originated: it doesn't look like Old English or Latin, which are where most of our English words come from.

Various etymological dictionaries tell us that it is just a variant spelling (dating from the 17th century) of the word 'curb', meaning to cut short. Well, that doesn't look very like Old English or Latin either, so I consulted the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary.

Here I found a curious piece of lexicography. The verb 'to curb', the SOED informs us, originates from the noun 'curb'. And where does that noun originate ? Probably from the verb 'to curb', the dictionary suggests. There is also a throw-away recommendation to the enquirer: 'Cf CRUB'. So we look up 'crub', only to find that it is a dialect variation of the noun 'curb'. Aha.

The modern Dictionary of Word Origins by John Ayto (1990) and the Oxford Dictionary of Word Histories (2002) follow Wyld's Universal Dictionary of the English Language (1932) and Skeat's Etymological Dictionary (2nd edn, 1888) in deriving the verb 'curb' from French courber = to bend something, itself evolved from L curvare = to bend, curve.

Pedants may be interested to know that the medieval Latin curba or courba was used to denote a curved bit of wood used in a boat or in the mechanism of a mill or in plough-harness. Curb was also used to mean a certain part of a bridle, so that the verb to curb came to mean to pull back a horse's head to slow it down - or metaphorically to restrain any kind of action. So we are expected to curb our impatience, our anger, our excessive enthusiasm.

So Latin it is - and 'kerb' is just an aberrant 17th century spelling. Wyld, incidentally, tells us that 'kerb' is an 'architectural' usage: and then defines it as 'the stone edging of a pavement in a street'. I must admit that I have never thought of pavements as architecture until today.

Where the Kerb Leads