Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Eager to learn more: curious investigators; a trapdoor that made me curious.
- adj. Unduly inquisitive; prying.
- adj. Arousing interest because of novelty or strangeness: a curious fact.
- adj. Archaic Accomplished with skill or ingenuity.
- adj. Archaic Extremely careful; scrupulous.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Careful; nice; accurate; fastidious; precise; exacting; minute.
- Wrought with or requiring care and art; neat; elaborate; finished: as, a curious work.
- Exciting curiosity or surprise; awakening inquisitive interest; rare; singular; odd: as, a curious fact.
- Inquisitive; desirous of seeing or knowing; eager to learn; addicted to research or inquiry; sometimes, in a disparaging sense, prying: as, a man of a curious mind: followed by after, of, in, or about, or an infinitive.
- Synonyms. Strange, Surprising, etc. See wonderful. Curious, Inquisitive, Prying. Curious and inquisitive may be used in a good or a bad sense, but inquisitive is more often, and prying is only, found in the latter. Curious expresses only the desire to know; inquisitive, the effort to find out by inquiry; prying, the effort to find out secrets by looking and working in improper ways.
- To work curiously; elaborate.
Wiktionary
- adj. obsolete Fastidious, particular; demanding a high standard of excellence, difficult to satisfy.
- adj. Inquisitive; tending to ask questions, investigate, or explore.
- adj. Prompted by curiosity.
- adj. unusual; odd; out of the ordinary; bizarre
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. obsolete Difficult to please or satisfy; solicitous to be correct; careful; scrupulous; nice; exact.
- adj. Exhibiting care or nicety; artfully constructed; elaborate; wrought with elegance or skill.
- adj. Careful or anxious to learn; eager for knowledge; given to research or inquiry; habitually inquisitive; prying; -- sometimes with
after orof . - adj. Exciting attention or inquiry; awakening surprise; inviting and rewarding inquisitiveness; not simple or plain; strange; rare.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. beyond or deviating from the usual or expected
- adj. having curiosity aroused; eagerly interested in learning more
- adj. eager to investigate and learn or learn more (sometimes about others' concerns)
Etymologies
- Middle English, from Old French curios, from Latin cūriōsus, careful, inquisitive, from cūra, care; see cure. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“As a 35-year-old feminist, the seemingly ubiquitous use of the term "post-feminist" seems to signal an ache on the part of those who use it to declare feminism dead and gone, despite very active momentum on various fronts and more than enough self-proclaimed feminists to render the use of the term curious.”
“But some crazy (or maybe they prefer the term curious?) fans have discovered Rob's address and have attempted to scope out the scene for themselves.”
“What I find rather curious is the swift pace that the enterprise and its end users areadopting the iPhone 4 and the iPad.”
The Huffington Post: Ramon Nuez: The Top Ten Activated Mobile Devices
““Maureen, this is Dr. Lewis,” she said when the older woman approached, her expression curious.”
“He ends the note already cited (Sept. 6, 1897) on the old House of Commons, which was burned down this year, with what he calls a curious incident concerning”
The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) 1809-1859
“Meanwhile, Ibori has refuted what he called curious claims that the agency invited him by”
“She told lawmakers of what she termed a curious, and ominous, similarity between what she said were her marching orders from the FAA, and what she later heard from Eclipse personnel:”
“She’d learned the word curious the week before and had been using it almost constantly ever since.”
“And, I'm really curious, is dsquared one of the heads of lettuce?”
Perspectives on Social Security, Arnold Kling | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty
“For a guy who's so concerned about returns on contributions to SS participants, how curious is that?”
More on Privatization, Arnold Kling | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘curious’.
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steffany(grade 2)
accident, agree, arrive, astronomy, attention, award, aware, balance, banner, bare, base, beach and 127 more...
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jackgrade2
accident, agree, arrive, astronomy, atlas, attention, award, aware, balance, banner, bare, base and 127 more...
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Vurtchester
Words thought of by thinking about Jeff Noon.
sexy, madchester, bass, feather, slick, vaz, rain, rainbow, electric, dub, fetish, yellow and 10 more...
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Kitten Is:
Mere days ago, I found a five-week-old kitten abandoned in the median of the Avenue we live on. She was in terrible shape, but is doing great now thanks to love and dedication.
The fo...small, hyper, bitey, silly, springy, soft, sage-eyed, tortoise shell, archy, darty, sneaky, bestriped and 27 more...
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Adjectives applicable to bubble tea
chewy, milky, weird, warm, cold, sweet, foamy, curious, unreal, soft, sloshy, sucky and 4 more...
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Words for my English Learners
vast, superfluous, inevitable, though, pervasive, overwhelm, assume, presume, curious, eccentric, whimsical, quaint and 12 more...
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Words For Novel
viridity, effigy, paragon, congested, acrid, lilting, clandestine, plethora, accolade, sardonic, naïve, reckoning and 285 more...
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intueri's Words
inveigle, dolorous, archly, feckless, resplendent, concatenation, peripatetic, delightful, cookie, fey, ephemeral, effervescent and 347 more...
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The Medley of Me
A jumble of words, sometimes contradictory, that add up to me. I'll probably be adding to this list for some time, because I'm a very complex individual. ;P
male, long-haired, big-eyed, writer, artist, guitarist, songsmith, talespinner, pilot, wannabe barnstormer, gypsy, cuddlesome and 209 more...
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diioxyde's Words
macabre, egypt, egyptology, queen, love, sex, sister, lover, web, cobweb, line, circle and 223 more...
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eggplantia5's Words
scintillate, marvel, cranberry, oscillate, triumph, bamboozle, grimace, magical, book, hexagon, cipher, compendium and 2727 more...
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colleen's words
yellow, green, pie, blue, fur, people, incense, book, brown, avuncular, mountain, fog and 1316 more...
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Descriptive
The present, the future. Goals, wishes, hopes.
capricious, sericeous, sleek, flawless, charming, skilled, long-haired, versatile, beautiful, witty, fair, thin and 145 more...
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curligirli0's Words
crapulous, swish, shiatsu, zen, xenoglossy, nincompoop, loquacious, pianissimo, onomatopoeia, imperturbable, silky, hosanas and 379 more...
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Basic English Vocabulary
Very basic words for ESL students.
a, abandon, ability, able, abortion, about, above, abroad, absence, absolute, absolutely, absorb and 4334 more...
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whitmanian
from the poetry and prose of walt whitman
celebrate, assume, loafe, grass, summer, distillation, atmosphere, undisguised, naked, mad, breath, loveroot and 291 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for curious.
michaelt42
"All things counter, original, spare, strange" (Gerard Manley Hopkins: Pied Beauty) presents us with four perfectly selected synonyms of curious. Jun 3, 2012
michaelt42 I recall a line from Walt Whitman's poem "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking" (1859), set to music by Frederick Delius in "Sea Drift" --
... And every day I, a curious boy, never too close, never disturbing them, Cautiously peering, absorbing, translating.
(them - a pair of nesting sea birds) Jun 3, 2012