Curious (kr-s), a.
Etymology: [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 Bean &
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 picurious after things that were elegant and beatiful 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. Mocaulay. Many a quaint and curiousvolume 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.
1 more senses
Syn. -- Inquisitive; prying. See Inquisitive.
Shades of meaning
Fernald has no entry of its own for curious; he lists it under inquisitive, queer, rare.
Where he writes about it:
As applied to a state of mind, curious denotes a keen and rather pleasurable desire to know fully something to which one's attention has been called, but without the active tendency that inquisitive implies; a well-bred person may be curious to know, but will not be inquisitive in trying to ascertain, what is of interest in the affairs of another. — from inquisitive