curdlern.
/ˈkəːdlə/, U.S. /ˈkərd(ə)lər/ 1. A person who causes something to curdle, esp. a person whose job is curdling milk in cheese-making. rare.
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1786 D. Levi Lingua Sacra II. sig. C/1 A curdler, or maker of cheese.
1941 Daily Mail 27 June 2/4 I am a cheese-fardler's curdler by trade and will be 101 years old if I live until next Friday.
1994 Times 12 Oct. 16/3 One by one we were unmasked as cowardy custard-makers and closet curdlers.
2. A substance that causes a liquid to curdle, e.g. rennet used to curdle milk in making cheese.
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the world > food and drink > food > dairy produce > [noun] > milk > curds > curdler
curdler1796
1796 R. Heron tr. A.-F. de Fourcroy Elements Chem. & Nat. Hist. III. 482 As to gallium, though it has got the name of milk-curdler, it does not possess that property.
1837 Penny Cycl. VII. 13/2 The most natural curdler of milk..is the gastric juice of the stomach of a sucking calf.
1856 Morning Post 17 May 3/2 Magnesia along with lime was oftener a great curdler of soap without otherwise being a destroyer of it.
1925 Kokomo (Indiana) Daily Tribune 20 July 9/6 The inoculation of sweet curdler must be heavy in order to dominate the acid formers..for lactic acid acts as a poison to this group of bacteria.
2003 Countryside & Small Stock Jrnl. (Electronic ed.) Jan. 33 This [rennet] is an extract from a calf's stomach and is a natural milk curdler.
3.
a. A story, play, painting, etc., that curdles the blood (cf. curdle v. 1b). Cf. blood-curdler n. at blood n. Compounds 5. Now rare.
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society > leisure > the arts > literature > prose > narrative or story > novel > [noun] > sensational novel or thriller
sensation novel1856
penny dreadful1861
dime novel1864
curdler1872
dreadful1874
blood and thunder1876
penny awful1880
shilling dreadful1885
thrill1886
thriller1889
blood1892
terror novel1896
penny horrible1899
spine-thriller1912
roman noir1926
spine-chiller1940
scorcher1942
spine-tingler1942
spine-freezer1960
1872 Indianapolis Jrnl. 14 May 8/2 The horse was immediately caught, or we might have had a ‘curdler’ to record this morning.
1886 Sporting Times 16 Jan. 5/2 The real curdler of this lot is a painting of a man..holding his own dripping head, which he has just severed from his body.
1910 Penny Illustr. Paper 15 Oct. 487/1 How long will it be before they publish Mrs. Wentworth James's latest curdler?
1966 Listener 21 July 103/3 It was a venture in serious science fiction..but too complicated to be a real curdler.
b. (The name of) an electronic device capable of emitting loud and sustained sounds over a wide area and designed for use in crowd control, psychological warfare, or as a non-lethal weapon. Also more fully sound curdler.Such devices are typically configured to emit sounds designed to cause pain or discomfort, or thought to be unsettling or disturbing.
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1965 Electronics World June 88/2 The unit is available with electronic siren, general-quarters alarm, and ‘people repeller’, or curdler for riot control.
1996 Daily Tel. 25 June 3/5 I have seen a reference to a device called a curdler used by the Army for riot control in Northern Ireland.
2003 Guardian 16 May b10/3 The panic-inducing effects of noise were experimented with in Vietnam using Sound Curdlers.
2017 N. Spinrad People's Police ii. 22 One driving the speeding airboat, one standing up beside him waving a pistol, the third at some kind of long-snouted curdler mounted on a swiveling pedestal.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2019; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1786