ˈcurb-stone, kerb-stone
Also kirb-stone.
One of the stones forming a curb, esp. at the edge of a side-path; hence, the stone edge of a side-path.
| 1791 Act 31 Geo. III c. 65 §124 Curb Stone from Eleven to Thirteen Inches wide and from Five to Seven Inches thick. 1806–7 J. Beresford Miseries Hum. Life (1826) xviii. iii. 132 The two side-spaces from the wall to the kirb-stone. 1850 Kingsley Alt. Locke v, You goes and lies on the kerb-stone. 1862 Ansted Channel Isl. i. iv. (ed. 2) 66 Black Guernsey granite for macadamised paving and curb stones. |
b. attrib., as curb-stone broker (U.S.), a broker, not a member of the stock exchange, who transacts business in the streets; also curbstone agent, operator.
| 1848 W. Armstrong Stocks 7 This class comprehends..all those petty operators and non-descripts, who have neither a local habitation or scarcely, a name, that are dignified by the title of curb-stone brokers. 1860 in Bartlett Dict. Amer. 1861 Knickerbocker LVII. 635 All sorts of brokers, from the leading houses down to the curbstone ‘operator’. 1862 R. B. Kimball Undercurrents (1868) 321 It is rather a habit with the Curbstone operator when he gets severely winged, to go into the cigar business. 1884 Cent. Mag. Aug. 629/2 Peddling ‘privileges’ to small speculators through curb-stone agents. 1886 Pall Mall G. 28 May 14/1 Both of these men are kerbstone brokers. |