Curtsy

Queen Mary of Denmark (then Crown Princess of Denmark), curtsies to King Charles III, 5 May 2023.
Carrie Johnson, wife of former British PM Boris Johnson, curtsies to Charles, Prince of Wales, 2022.
Michelle Obama and a girl curtsying – one leg ahead of the other with both legs bent. The heel is up for the back leg. The back leg crosses the front leg.
A young girl presenting flowers to Queen Elizabeth II outside Brisbane City Hall in March, 1954.

A curtsy (also spelled curtsey or incorrectly as courtsey) is a traditional gendered gesture of greeting, in which a girl or woman bends her knees while bowing her head. In Western culture it is the feminine equivalent of bowing by males. Miss Manners characterizes its knee bend as deriving from a "traditional gesture of an inferior to a superior."[1] The word "curtsy" is a phonological change from "courtesy" known in linguistics as syncope.

  1. ^ Martin, Judith (2005). Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior. W. W. Norton & Company. p. 692. ISBN 978-0-393-05874-1.