VERB
- perform a leap where both hind legs come off the ground, of a horse
NOUN
- a light leap by a horse in which both hind legs leave the ground before the forelegs come down
How To Use curvet In A Sentence
- Here it is used for "croupade," "a high curvet in which the hind legs are brought up under the belly of the horse" (_N. The Works of Lord Byron. Vol. 2
- Cornet Richard Grahame descended the hill, bearing in his hand the extempore flag of truce, and making his managed horse keep time by bounds and curvets to the tune which he whistled. Old Mortality
- English ideas the _pollo_ is more objectionable there than elsewhere, since his idea of riding is to show off the antics of a horse specially taught and made to prance about and curvet while he sits it, his legs sticking out in the position of the Colossus of Rhodes, his heels, armed with spurs, threatening catastrophe to the other riders. Spanish Life in Town and Country
- Don Quixote made no answer, nor did the horsemen wait for one, but wheeling again with all their followers, they began curvetting round Don Quixote, who, turning to Sancho, said, "These gentlemen have plainly recognised us; I will wager they have read our history, and even that newly printed one by the Aragonese. Don Quixote
- I can see my husband riding the margins of the field, talking to his land steward, and I kick Arthur into a rolling canter and come up to him in a rush that makes his own horse sidle and curvet in the mud. The Red Queen
- It comes ‘in curvets and caprioles, with the flashing of glutted fish-runs’, and so on for a page of equally shimmery and restive fine-tuning.
- Their steeds, caparisoned with silk, lacquered leather and gold buckles, caracoled and curvetted as their riders put them through their paces. The Coming of Conan The Cimmerian
- Cry ‘holla’ to thy tongue, I prithee; it curvets unseasonably. As You Like It
- There were seen so many cavaliers prancing and curvetting before the windows of their mistresses, that a stranger would have imagined the whole nation to have been nothing less than a race of knight – errants. Don Quixote
- And the curvets, caprioles, croupades, done by the horsemen of the Cadre Noir, in the saddle or working the horse in hand, have hardly changed since the carousels performed to music by Lully before the Sun King.
