manicure

Etymology

It is borrowed from French manicure,^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]} formed from Latin manus (“hand”) and cūra (“care”).^{[3][4][8][5][9]} Barnhart notes that both manicure and the variant manucure appeared in French in 1877, and that only manucure survives there today;^[2] the OED dates the French manicure to 1858 or earlier.^[10] The revised OED takes the English word as formed from mani- and cure, partly after the French word and partly after pedicure,^[10] and Merriam-Webster Unabridged likewise sees Latin manus with the ending of pédicure.^[11] Weekley compares the earlier pedicure.^[12] The Latin noun manus goes back to Proto-Indo-European *man- (“hand”).^[3][13] The word is related to manual.^[4][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

A person who treats the hands and fingernails, a manicurist: 1866, in the Morning Post.^[10] Etymonline dates this sense to 1873,^[3] Merriam-Webster Unabridged to 1877^[11] and Barnhart to 1880.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The sense "manicurist" is now rare;^[10][5] the care of the hands and nails, or a single treatment, is recorded from 1887,^[10][2][3] and the agent noun manicurist from 1889.^[2] The verb is dated 1885 by Etymonline, 1889 by Barnhart and 1893 by the OED;^[3][2][10] the OED notes the slightly earlier manicured and manicuring.^[10] From about 1926 it was used more widely for trimming something neatly, as a lawn or hedge, or smartening it up, usually as the participle manicured.^[10][11][7]

Timeline

• 1866 – a manicurist.^[10]
• 1887 – the care of the hands and fingernails.^[10][2][3]
• 1893 – verb, to give a manicure to.^[10]
• c. 1926 – verb, to trim neatly, to smarten up.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. A cosmetic treatment of the hands and fingernails, with shaping and polishing of the nails and removal of the cuticles.^[7][11][10]
2. (rare) A manicurist.^[10][5][7]

Verb

1. To give the hands and nails a manicure.^[7][11][10]
2. To trim closely and neatly: a manicured golf course.^[11][7][10]

Word family

• manicurist

Related words

• pedicure
• manual
• cure

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d e f Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
8. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
10. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
12. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
13. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt