Curded

Part of speech: verb, adjective

Definitions

1. Thickened and separated into soft lumps of solid matter, as milk does when acid or rennet is added
2. Having coagulated into soft clumps of solid protein while the liquid whey drains away from them
3. Turned into soft, lumpy solids through coagulation, the way milk separates when it sours or is treated

Etymology: "Curded" is the past tense and past participle of "curd", so its history is really the history of the noun. "Curd" comes from Middle English "curd", a metathetic variant of "crud" or "crudde", meaning a coagulated substance. Metathesis is the swapping of sounds within a word, here the r and the u trading places, so "crud" and "curd" are essentially the same word with its letters rearranged over time. The two forms did not split into separate meanings in the way many word pairs do. "Crud" and "curd" are doublets, two words descended from one source that entered the language by different routes or at different times. Today "crud" has drifted toward grime and filth, while "curd" kept the sense of something that has thickened or clotted, which is why milk that has coagulated is still called curdled.

Synonyms: curdle, clot, coagulate, congeal

Antonyms: liquefy, dissolve, melt