cur

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English curre, also cur and corre,^[2] probably shortened from Middle English curdogge (“cur dog”),^{[3][4][5][6][7]} the form the OED finds considerably earlier than the simple word.^[8] The first element is usually connected with Germanic verbs imitating a growl:^[8][9][10] Old Norse kurra (“to murmur, grumble”),^{[8][9][3][11]} Middle Low German kurren (“to growl”) (Etymonline writes korren),^[3][9] Middle High German kurren (“to growl, grunt”),^[3][10] Swedish kurra (“to rumble, snarl”) and Danish kurre (“to coo”).^[8][11] Hoad, the Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English point to the Old Norse noun kurr (“grumbling”).^[12][6][7] The OED, Klein and Skeat compare Middle Dutch corre (“house dog”) and the Swedish and Norwegian dialect word Swedish kurre (“dog”);^[8][5][11] since no matching verb is found in English, the OED thinks the word was probably brought in from a continental Germanic language,^[8] while Barnhart and the American Heritage Dictionary suggest a Scandinavian source.^[10][13] Merriam-Webster Unabridged derives it instead from an assumed Middle English verb *curren (“to growl”) and dogge (“dog”), and relates it to crane.^[3] The original sense thus seems to have been "growling or snarling beast".^[8][5] Weekley took the use of the same name for the gurnard and for a duck with a croaking cry as confirmation; the OED calls those senses possibly separate echoic formations.^[14][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

A watchdog such as a mastiff, a small hunting dog such as a terrier, or a mongrel or stray dog: in the Ancrene Riwle (c. 1230), which says Curre is kene on his ahne mixne, a cur is bold on its own dunghill, and calls the Devil þe fule cur dogge.^[2][10] The OED dates its first record c. 1225, Barnhart probably before 1200, and Etymonline c. 1200.^[8][10][9]

Semantic evolution

The word was at first a general name for a dog: Barnhart notes that in later Middle English both curre and cur-dogge could mean a good dog as well as a bad one,^[10] and the OED says it was formerly applied without contempt.^[8] Forest records from Chester in 1351 already name dogs curdogges.^[2] It has since become always depreciative, a worthless, low-bred or snappish dog.^[8][6] In 19th-century Lakeland, Cumberland, Yorkshire and Cheshire dialect a cur was still simply a shepherd's dog or watchdog, of any breed,^[15][3] and fox hunters used it of any dog other than a foxhound.^[3] The contemptuous sense for a person appears in the late 16th century: the Shorter Oxford dates it to the early 16th century, Etymonline to the 1580s, and Barnhart finds it in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream (1590), which the OED dates 1600.^{[6][9][10][8]} Johnson (1755) defined it first as "a worthless degenerate dog".^[16] The name was also given to a fish, the red gurnard, from 1589 to 1753, and in dialect to the goldeneye duck from 1621.^[8][6]

Timeline

• c. 1230 – a watchdog, hunting dog or mongrel;^[2] cur dogge, of the Devil.^[2] The OED dates its first record c. 1225.^[8]
• 1589 – a fish, the red gurnard (obsolete by 1753).^[8][6]
• 1590 – a surly, low-bred or cowardly person, in Shakespeare.^[10] The OED dates the quotation 1600.^[8]
• 1621 – the goldeneye duck (dialect).^[8][6]

Meanings

Noun

1. A mongrel or worthless dog, especially a snappish or aggressive one: A scruffy cur growled at us from the gateway.^{[17][3][8][18]}
2. A contemptible, surly or cowardly person.^{[17][3][8][18]}
3. (dialect, chiefly British) A sheepdog or watchdog.^[3][15]
4. (hunting) A dog other than a foxhound.^[3]
5. (dialect) The goldeneye duck.^[3][8][6]
6. (obsolete, 1589–1753) A fish, the red gurnard.^[8][6]

Word family

• curlike
• currish

Related words

• curdog

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
5. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
10. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
11. ^ a b c Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
13. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
14. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
15. ^ a b Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
16. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
17. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
18. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin