Etymologically
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cure

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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

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