Curious

How to spell curious

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce curious

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does curious mean?

1. adjectiveEager to learn or know about something.
2. adjectiveStrange, unusual, or difficult to explain.

Curious in a sentence

• The children were curious about how the engine worked.

• A curious smell drifted out of the locked storeroom.

• She was curious to find out who had sent the parcel.

• It was a curious coincidence that both letters arrived on the same day.

Where does curious come from?

Language of origin: Latin

Curious comes from the Latin curiosus, meaning 'careful' or 'painstaking', which was built on the noun cura, meaning 'care' or 'concern'. In its earliest Latin life the word described someone who took great pains over something, and that careful attentiveness shaded naturally into the idea of being inquisitive, of caring enough to enquire closely. English borrowed it through Old French in the 1300s, at first carrying both the sense of 'made with skill and care' and the sense of 'eager to know'. The same Latin cura also gives us 'cure', 'curate', 'secure' and 'accurate', all of which involve taking care over something. The spelling trap lies in that unstressed middle, the '-rious' ending that can tempt writers toward 'curius' or 'curous', when in fact the 'i' before 'ous' must stay.

How the word is built

• cur- (from cura: care, concern)
• -ious (adjective suffix: full of)