courbe
French, noun
courbe is spelled C-O-U-R-B-E (6 letters) and appears 12 times per million words in written French, the 5,743rd most frequent French word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). Courbe is a French feminine noun meaning “curve” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). With an accent, courbé is a different word: “bent, bowed”. The French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) defines it as “Ligne dont la direction change de façon continue”.
What does courbe mean in English?
noun
- 1
femininecurve
adjective
- 1
curved
- 2
bent (not straight)
adjective
- 1
bent, bowed
verb
- 1
past participle of courber
Source: English Wiktionary, French section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
How French dictionaries define it
adjective: 1. Qui n’est ni droit, ni composé de lignes droites.
noun: 1. Ligne dont la direction change de façon continue. 2. Ligne quelconque, sous-ensemble d'un espace euclidien. 3. Représentation graphique d'une fonction binomiale sous forme de diagramme. 4. Pièce de bois en forme d’arc qui sert aux ouvrages de charpenterie et qui entre principalement dans la construction des navires.
adjective: 1. Qui a l’allure d’une courbe. 2. Se dit d’un meuble, une pièce, dont la représentation prend une posture courbée contrairement à sa représentation ordinaire rectiligne.
The definition in the French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire), in French.
Source: French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire), dump of September 1, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org.
Forms of courbe
- courbes plural
- courbée feminine
- courbés masculine plural
- courbées feminine plural
Source: English Wiktionary and French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).
English words that translate to courbe
Source: the translation tables of the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026.
How common is courbe in French?
courbe appears 12 times per million words in written French.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).