Webster
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Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Curious

Cu′ri·ous (k?′r?-?s), a. [OF. curios, curius, F. curieux, L. curiosus careful, inquisitive, fr. cura care. See Cure.] 1. Difficult to please or satisfy; solicitous to be correct; careful; scrupulous; nice; exact. [Obs.]

Little curious in her clothes. Fuller.

How shall we, If he be curious, work upon his faith? Beau. & Fl.

2. Exhibiting care or nicety; artfully constructed; elaborate; wrought with elegance or skill.

To devise curious works. Ex. xxxv. 32

His body couched in a curious bed. Shak.

3. Careful or anxious to learn; eager for knowledge; given to research or inquiry; habitually inquisitive; prying; — sometimes with after or of.

It is a pity a gentleman so very curious after things that were elegant and beautiful should not have been as curious as to their origin, their uses, and their natural history. Woodward.

4. Exciting attention or inquiry; awakening surprise; inviting and rewarding inquisitiveness; not simple or plain; strange; rare. "Acurious tale" Shak.

A multitude of curious analogies. Macaulay.

Many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore. E. A. Poe.

Abstruse investigations in recondite branches of learning or sciense often bring to light curious results. C. J. Smith.

Curious arts, magic. [Obs.]

Many . . . which used curious arts brought their books together, and burned them. Acts xix. 19.

Syn. — Inquisitive; prying. See Inquisitive.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty. Of the others, 1,362 (a word or a single letter each) were inferred by AI from the context by the dictionary’s own rules and are marked with a wavy underline (tap or point at one to see the note); the rest, which could not be inferred with confidence, are left as “?”.