"having curls, tending to curl," 1770s, from curl (n.) + -y (2); earliest use is of hair. Related: Curliness.
Entries linking to curly
curl n.
c. 1600, "a ringlet of hair;" by 1610s in reference to anything of similar spiral or undulating form; from curl (v.). Surfer slang for "curved top of a breaking wave" is by 1962.
-y 2
adjective suffix, "full of or characterized by," from Old English -ig, from Proto-Germanic *-iga- (source also of Dutch, Danish, German -ig, Gothic -egs), from PIE -(i)ko-, adjectival suffix, cognate with elements in Greek -ikos, Latin -icus (see -ic). Originally added to nouns in Old English; used from 13c. with verbs, and by 15c. even with other adjectives (for example crispy). Adjectives such as hugy, vasty are artificial words that exist for the sake of poetical metrics.
curlicue n.
"something fantastically curved or twisted," 1843, American English, from combining form of curly. The cue is perhaps from French queue "tail" or an image from the letter Q in its looping script form. Earlier in this sense was the rhyming reduplication curlie-wurlie (1772).