curb  /kɜːrb/ /kə

  n.

   1. the raised edge of a path, where the made thing ends and the    next
      thing has not been decided.

   2. a check; a thing that holds another thing back from going as far
      as it meant to go. "keep a curb on it," a voice said, and the rest
      of the sentence went around the corner with the lantern.

   3. the margin a page keeps for itself, so the words have somewhere  to
      stop. Most words are grateful. A few are not.

   4. the place a word arrives at when it has said as much as the medium
      will hold; the edge beyond which the apprentice is not permitted to
      comprehend the rest, because the rest is on no page, and so the def
      inition does not en


  v.

   5. to stop a thing kindly, at the curb, before it could

  [ from an older word for a bent thing — a rein, a held shape — for the
    shape a sentence makes just before it