Curtin is a French word, the meaning of which is not clear to everyone. Moreover, it has not one but several interpretations and is used in various areas of life. For example, in architecture, horticulture and forestry. Read more about the fact that this is a curtain, read in this article.
In gardening
The dictionaries give several meanings of the word "curtain." Here are the wordings regarding the application of the term under study in landscape gardening art.
Firstly, it is considered as an obsolete word, which is interpreted as an open area of the lawn in the park. It is framed by trees or shorn bushes.
Secondly, in the landscape park - this is a compact group consisting of bushes and trees, which grows freely, separately. Moreover, it is homogeneous.
Thirdly, it is a bed with flowers, which is lined with turf. The latter is the topsoil, which is densely overgrown with grass and bonded by the roots of plants, which are perennials. And also it is layers cut from such a layer.
Other values of the studied token will be considered below.
In other areas
The word in question is also used in forestry. There it denotes a site overgrown with trees or shrubs of the same species growing in a mixed forest.
In architecture, a curtain is a group of blocks, which in plan is a rectangle. On the transverse sides, it is limited to descents to the river.
In fortification, this is the part of the fortress fence that is usually rectangular in shape. It connects two neighboring bastions facing each other, and together with them forms a bastion front.
To better understand that this is a curtain, we study the origin of the word.
Etymology
According to linguists, the word has its roots in ancient times. Originally in Latin there was such a noun as cohors. He had several meanings. These include:
Subsequently, it became the basis for the formation of the word cortina, which means "curtain", "veil" in vulgar Latin. The latter is a colloquial variety of the literary language, or folk Latin. At first it was distributed only in Italy, and then in the provinces throughout the Roman Empire.
From the vulgar Latin in medieval times, the studied lexeme fell into the French language, where it took the form of courtine and such a meaning as “curtain”. This was a theater curtain that was hung between two pillars. In the 16th century, the term began to be used to refer to the rampart connecting the bastions.
It is believed that the word appeared in Russian, having come to us from German, where there is a noun Kurtine. For the first time it is found in the writings of Peter I.