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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
curdle
verb
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ Do not let the sauce boil or it will curdle.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Again, it's vital not to overheat the liquid because it will curdle as well as lose its taste.
▪ The Comanche liked to kill young buffalo calves and eat the curdled, partially digested milk from the stomach.
▪ When heated, sour cream will curdle quickly.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Curdle

Curdle \Cur"dle\ (k[^u]r"d'l), v. i. [From Curd.] [Sometimes written crudle and cruddle.]

  1. To change into curd; to coagulate; as, rennet causes milk to curdle.
    --Thomson.

  2. To thicken; to congeal.

    Then Mary could feel her heart's blood curdle cold.
    --Southey.

Curdle

Curdle \Cur"dle\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Curdled (-d'ld); p. pr. & vb. n. Curdling (-dl[i^]ng).]

  1. To change into curd; to cause to coagulate. ``To curdle whites of eggs''
    --Boyle.

  2. To congeal or thicken.

    My chill blood is curdled in my veins.
    --Dryden.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
curdle

1630s (earlier crudle, 1580s), "to thicken, cause to congeal," frequentative of curd (v.) "to make into curd" (late 14c.; see curd). Of blood, in figurative sense "to inspire horror" from c.1600. Related: Curdled (1590); curdling (c.1700, almost always with reference to blood, in the figurative sense).

Wiktionary
curdle

vb. 1 (context ambitransitive English) To form curds so that it no longer flows smoothly; to cause to form such curds. (usually said of milk) 2 (context ambitransitive English) To clot or coagulate; to cause to congeal, such as through cold. (metaphorically of blood) 3 (context transitive English) To cause a liquid to spoil and form clumps so that it no longer flows smoothly

WordNet
curdle
  1. v. turn into curds; "curdled milk" [syn: clabber, clot] [ant: homogenize, homogenize, homogenize]

  2. go bad or sour; "The milk curdled"

  3. turn from a liquid to a solid mass; "his blood curdled"

Usage examples of "curdle".

The afterglow was dying on the walls, clashing nastily with all the curdled pinks in here.

High pitched and fiendish, they penetrated the shells of Madri and of Byzant, of Ning and Tok and Nyork, and curdled the brains of the Aristos and Doctils and Plebos that dwelt there.

At his inner elbow, tanned skin curdled like birch bark in a fire, split and broke and bled and itched abominably.

The drab robe curdled into a loathsome purple hide that squirmed with life.

The musky snake odor of the vampire mingled with the curdled whale-meat stench of the giant horror, odors so rank Johan wanted to gag.

He was breathing hard anc his eyes were glazed, and his skin was the color of curdled milk.

Sidewalks had widened, stretched by the muscular fingers of money, and the pour of office workers had curdled into a cyclonic multitude, well-dressed, cologned, and silently pouting because the limousines double-parked along each and every curb were not idling obediently for it.

The sky that had been so clear in the morning was now a curdled mass of ominous clouds.

Smoke curdled up among the rough hacked rafters, leather flaps covered the windows.

I pressed my hands flat to it, while my blood and brain curdled, and a horse leaped under my breast.

He knelt down beside Cassandra, watching in horror as her flesh curdled to a milky white.

Sleeping within my orchard, as my custom was in the afternoon, on my secure hour thy uncle stole with cursed juice of hebenon in a vial, and did pour the leprous distilment into mine ears, that curdled my blood.

There was a curdling human cry of revenge as Hool moved to block it, but the boar was quicker, and wily.

They were smothered in mud, hair hanging in soiled dreadlocks, spittle saturating their tufty beards, scratches bleeding, dribbles of red blood curdling with the mud.

But Xenia could make out a dim cloud of green, swathing the Earth: It was an orbiting forest, Trees that had survived the collision, still drawing their sustenance from the curdled air with superconductor roots.