Definitions

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

  • adjective Eager to learn more.
  • adjective Unduly inquisitive; prying.
  • adjective Arousing interest because of novelty or strangeness.
  • adjective Accomplished with skill or ingenuity.
  • adjective Extremely careful; scrupulous or fastidious.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To work curiously; elaborate.
  • 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.

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

  • adjective obsolete Difficult to please or satisfy; solicitous to be correct; careful; scrupulous; nice; exact.
  • adjective Exhibiting care or nicety; artfully constructed; elaborate; wrought with elegance or skill.
  • adjective Careful or anxious to learn; eager for knowledge; given to research or inquiry; habitually inquisitive; prying; -- sometimes with after or of.
  • adjective Exciting attention or inquiry; awakening surprise; inviting and rewarding inquisitiveness; not simple or plain; strange; rare.
  • adjective [Obs.] magic.

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

  • adjective obsolete Fastidious, particular; demanding a high standard of excellence, difficult to satisfy.
  • adjective Inquisitive; tending to ask questions, investigate, or explore.
  • adjective Prompted by curiosity.
  • adjective unusual; odd; out of the ordinary; bizarre

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

  • adjective beyond or deviating from the usual or expected
  • adjective having curiosity aroused; eagerly interested in learning more
  • adjective eager to investigate and learn or learn more (sometimes about others' concerns)

Etymologies

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

[Middle English, from Old French curios, from Latin cūriōsus, careful, inquisitive, from cūra, care; see cure.]

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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.

    The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com Rachel Kramer Bussel 2011

  • 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.

    E! Online (US) - Top Stories 2010

  • What I find rather curious is the swift pace that the enterprise and its end users areadopting the iPhone 4 and the iPad.

    Ramon Nuez: The Top Ten Activated Mobile Devices Ramon Nuez 2010

  • What I find rather curious is the swift pace that the enterprise and its end users areadopting the iPhone 4 and the iPad.

    Ramon Nuez: The Top Ten Activated Mobile Devices Ramon Nuez 2010

  • What I find rather curious is the swift pace that the enterprise and its end users areadopting the iPhone 4 and the iPad.

    Ramon Nuez: The Top Ten Activated Mobile Devices Ramon Nuez 2010

  • What I find rather curious is the swift pace that the enterprise and its end users areadopting the iPhone 4 and the iPad.

    Ramon Nuez: The Top Ten Activated Mobile Devices Ramon Nuez 2010

  • What I find rather curious is the swift pace that the enterprise and its end users areadopting the iPhone 4 and the iPad.

    Ramon Nuez: The Top Ten Activated Mobile Devices Ramon Nuez 2010

  • “Maureen, this is Dr. Lewis,” she said when the older woman approached, her expression curious.

    Dragon Warrior Janet Chapman 2010

  • “Maureen, this is Dr. Lewis,” she said when the older woman approached, her expression curious.

    Dragon Warrior Janet Chapman 2010

  • “Maureen, this is Dr. Lewis,” she said when the older woman approached, her expression curious.

    Dragon Warrior Janet Chapman 2010

Comments

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  • 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)

    June 3, 2012

  • "All things counter, original, spare, strange" (Gerard Manley Hopkins: Pied Beauty) presents us with four perfectly selected synonyms of curious.

    June 3, 2012