curd

From Middle English curd, a metathetic variant of crud, crudde (“coagulated substance”). Doublet of crud.

• enPR: kû(r)d, IPA^(key): /kɜː(ɹ)d/
• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)d
• Homophone: Kurd

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curd (countable and uncountable, plural curds)

1. The part of milk that coagulates when it sours or is treated with enzymes; used to make cottage cheese, dahi, etc.
   • 1805, Songs for the Nursery, page 23:

     Little Miss Muffet, She sat on a tuffet, Eating of curds and whey; There came a little spider, Who sat down beside her, And frighted Miss Muffet away.

2. (India) dahi
3. The coagulated part of any liquid.
4. The edible flower head of certain brassicaceous plants.
   • 1865, Fearing Burr, The Field and Garden Vegetables of America:

     Broccoli should not be allowed to remain till the compactness of the head is broken, but should always be cut while the 'curd,' as the flowering mass is termed, is entire

   • 2010, Geoff Stebbings, Growing Your Own Fruit and Veg For Dummies, Chichester, W. Sussex: John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN, pages 162–163:

     This beautiful vegetable [Romanesco broccoli] looks rather like a green cauliflower designed by a mathematician and has lime-green 'spiralled' curds. The curds are nutty and tasty, and romanesco is worth growing just for its good looks. You can use romanesco in the same ways that you would normally use cauliflower but the flavour is sweeter and they look far more impressive. I try to leave them in large pieces when serving them because they're so beautiful.

• (coagulated fraction of milk): whey

• buttermilk
• milk
• yoghurt

curd (third-person singular simple present curds, present participle curding, simple past and past participle curded)

1. (intransitive) To form curd; to curdle.
2. (transitive) To cause to coagulate or thicken; to cause to congeal; to curdle.
   • c. 1604–1605 (date written), William Shakespeare, “All’s Well, that Ends Well”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene iii]:

     Does it curd thy blood
     To say I am thy mother?

• curdle

• CRUD, crud

curd

1. Alternative form of crudde