cure

Pronunciation

• IPA: UK /kjʊə/, /kjɔː/, US /kjʊr/^[1]

Etymology

It is Middle English cure, coure, borrowed from Old French cure and directly from Latin cūra (“care, concern, attention, management”),^[2][3][4] from Old Latin coira-,^[3][2] a noun of unknown origin;^[3] Barnhart compares Paelignian coisā- “care” and perhaps Gothic ushaista “needy”, from PIE *kois- “to care for”.^[2] The verb is Old French curer, from cūrāre (“to take care of; to treat medically”).^[2][3][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Care, heed, charge: about 1300 in the OED and Etymonline, probably before 1300 in Barnhart.^[5][3][2]

Semantic evolution

Spiritual charge of parishioners, the cure of souls, is from about 1340,^[5][4] and a parish or charge from about 1483.^[5] Medical care, healing and restoration to health is from about 1380,^[2][3] and a remedy from the late 14th century.^[3] The verb meant to take care of in about 1378, in Piers Plowman, and to heal in about 1384, in the Wycliffe Bible.^[2] To preserve fish or meat by drying or salting is by 1743, the 17th century in Hoad.^[3][4] Etymonline notes that most European words for “cure” first applied to the person treated and only later to the disease.^[3] Curable is from before 1398 and cure-all American English from 1821.^[2]

Timeline

• c. 1300 – care, charge.^[5][3]
• c. 1340 – the cure of souls.^[5]
• c. 1380 – medical treatment, healing.^[2]
• c. 1384 – to heal.^[2]
• 1743 – to preserve meat or fish.^[3]
• 1821 – cure-all.^[2]

Modern meaning

Verb

1. To make someone healthy again, or get rid of an illness.
2. To solve or put an end to a problem.
3. To preserve meat or fish by salting, smoking or drying.
4. To harden or finish a material, such as rubber or concrete, by a chemical or physical process.

Noun

1. A remedy or treatment that cures a disease.
2. Recovery from illness.
3. A solution to a problem.
4. (ecclesiastical) The spiritual charge of a parish; the cure of souls.

Word family

• curer
• cureless
• curelessly
• outcure
• precure
• cure-all
• incurable
• fire-cure

Related words

• curate
• curative
• curator
• pedicure
• sinecure
• curable
• accurate
• secure
• procure

Usage notes

Curé, a parish priest in France, is a different word, from French curé, from Medieval Latin cūrātus (see curate), from 1655.^[2][3][6]

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c d e Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins