Definition of "curvet"
curvet
verb
third-person singular simple present curvets, present participle curveting or curvetting, simple past and past participle curveted or curvetted
(intransitive) Of a horse or, by extension, another animal: to leap about, to frolic.
Quotations
Sometime he trots, as if he told the steps, / With gentle majesty and modest pride; / Anon he rears upright, curvets and leaps, / As who should say, 'Lo! thus my strength is tried; / And this I do to captivate the eye / Of the fair breeder that is standing by.'The spelling has been modernized.
1593, 1896, lines 277-282
The boy turns into a dog and bow-wows—a cock, he flaps his wings and crows—a cow, he fetches a long drawn moo—a horse broke loose, he curvets, prances and kicks fearfully among his nursery blocks—a big bull, he waxes dangerous as he bellows and paws the carpet—a locomotive, he blows his steam whistle and dashes round the nursery with puffs and yells spasmodic, or taming down, sticks a feather in his cap and struts a soldier.
1886, Theodore Dwight Weld, “Shakespeare in the Class-Room”, in Shakespeariana, Vol. III, p. 441
[T]he dog—a magnificent Newfoundland—that had come galloping down the field to meet us, began curveting round us, in gambols full of graceful beauty, and welcoming us with short joyful barks.
1893, Lewis Carroll [pseudonym; Charles Lutwidge Dodgson], “The Dog-king”, in Sylvie and Bruno Concluded, London, New York, N.Y.: Macmillan and Co., page 58
(transitive) To cause to leap about, dart or jump.
Quotations
[…] I could no more travel the same Path, again and again, than I could have Patience to mount a managed Horse, in the Riding-House, and curvet it in the same Spot, for three Hours together.
1766, Elizabeth Griffith, A Series of Genuine Letters between Henry and Frances, London: W. Johnston, Volume III, Letter 447, pp. 256-257
(of a bird) To fly or swim with darting movements.
Quotations
The west wind was the music, the motion, the force / To which the swans curveted, a will to change, / A will to make iris frettings on the blank.
1942, Wallace Stevens, “Notes toward a Supreme Fiction: It Must Change”, in The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, published 1954, page 397
(figuratively) (of a person) To prance; to caper, frolic.
Quotations
It is not possible, many critics allege, that Juana Inés could have lived in the whirlwind of the court for five years […] and have emerged unscathed. I have already said that it would be absurd to discount the possibility of some curvetting and amorous play.
1988, Octavio Paz, chapter 8, in Margaret Sayers Peden, transl., Sor Juana or, The Traps of Faith, Harvard University Press, page 100
(figuratively) (of an object) To jump, skip, shake.
Quotations
[…] you must know that when the second iron is thrown overboard, it thenceforth becomes a dangling, sharp-edged terror, skittishly curvetting about both boat and whale, entangling the lines, or cutting them, and making a prodigious sensation in all directions.
1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “Chapter 63”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley
noun
plural curvets
A particular leap in which a horse raises both forelegs at once, equally advanced, and, as the forelegs are falling, raises the hind legs, so that all the legs are in the air at once.
Quotations
Complexion and constitution are alike revived by a drive in the Park—a white glove rests on the carriage window—and some 'gallant gray' or chestnut Arabian is curbed into curvets and foam by its whispering master.
1831, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XI, in Romance and Reality. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, […], page 93