Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun One who manages or oversees, as the administrative director of a museum collection or a library.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In Roman law, one appointed to manage the affairs of a person past the age of puberty when from any cause he has become unfit to manage them himself.
  • noun In civil law, a guardian; specifically, one who has the care of the estate of a minor or other incompetent person.
  • noun One who has the care and superintendence of something, as of a public museum, fine-art collection, or the like.
  • noun In Scotch law, one appointed as guardian for minors, incompetents, etc.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun One who has the care and superintendence of anything, as of a museum; a custodian; a keeper.
  • noun One appointed to act as guardian of the estate of a person not legally competent to manage it, or of an absentee; a trustee; a guardian.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A person who manages, administers or organizes a collection, either independently or employed by a museum, library, archive or zoo.
  • noun One appointed to act as guardian of the estate of a person not legally competent to manage it, or of an absentee; a trustee.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the custodian of a collection (as a museum or library)

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English curatour, legal guardian, from Old French curateur, from Latin cūrātor, overseer, from cūrātus, past participle of cūrāre, to take care of; see curative.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin curator ("one who has care of a thing, a manager, guardian, trustee"), from curare ("to take care of"), from cura ("care, heed, attention, anxiety, grief").

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