An archaic or Middle English spelling of curtain; a hanging cloth used to cover windows, doors, or divide spaces.
From Old French cortine, from Latin cortina (originally meaning a 'cauldron' or 'pot,' then metaphorically a 'hanging'). The spelling 'curtein' reflects Middle English phonetics before standardization.
The word curtain originally meant a cauldron in Latin—historians think Roman soldiers called a tent curtain by this name because it hung like the sides of a large pot, and the metaphor stuck!
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