curios

Forms

curios m or n (feminine singular curioasă, masculine plural curioși, feminine/neuter plural curioase)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French curieux, with a learned Latin cūriōsus (“careful; eager to know”) beside it, in DELR, which takes the older variant “curioz” from Italian curioso and Latin.^[2] DEX, MDA2 and Marcu name all three languages.^[3][4][5] Ciorănescu puts Italian first and French only later, in the 19th century: the word was once pronounced “curioz”, as in Italian or Modern Greek κοριόζος (koriózos).^[6] Tiktin names the Italian word, “also indirectly”, and Cihac and Scriban only the Latin one.^[7][8][9] Scriban took the northern Moldavian “curioz” from Russian.^[9]

Latin “cūriōsus” is formed on cūra (“care”), first “careful, diligent”.^[10][11] Wiktionary explains it as a back-formation from incūriōsus (“careless”).^[1] The word also reached Aromanian, as Aromanian curios or curyios, which Pascu takes from Italian and Venetian.^[6][12][13]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR and Tiktin date the first record to 1693, under the variant curioz.^[2][7] MDA2's first record is a manuscript of before 1783, where tales of two people are expected to seem curious, that is, strange and interesting.^[4][14] Klein's dictionary of 1801 has curios “eager to know anything”;^[15] Gáldi takes it, in all likelihood, from Latin.^[15]

Semantic evolution

Two senses run side by side from the old texts on: of people, “eager to see, hear and learn”, often in a bad sense, “prying, indiscreet”; and of things, “arousing curiosity”, hence “strange, odd, remarkable”.^[14][4] The Lexicon of Buda (1825) gives both, “eager for news” and “odd, wonderful”.^[16] Costinescu adds “odd, extravagant”, and Scriban an exclamation of surprise, Curios!^[17][9]

The variant curioz lived on mainly in Moldavia and is now obsolete: Alecsandri still has îs curioz să văd “I am curious to see”.^[14] The noun curiozitate is recorded from 1694, and the rare negatives necuriozitate and necurios from 1862 and 1891.^[2]

Timeline

• 1693 – the variant curioz, the first record.^[2][7]
• 1694 – curiozitate “curiosity”, as curiozitas.^[2]
• before 1783 – curios “strange, interesting” in a manuscript text.^[4]
• 1785 – the rare curioznic “curious”.^[2][7]
• 1801 – curios “eager to know anything” in Klein's dictionary.^[15]
• 1825 – “eager for news; odd, wonderful” in the Lexicon of Buda.^[16]
• 1848 – in Negulici's dictionary of neologisms.^[18]
• 1891 – necurios “incurious”.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. curious, inquisitive: wanting to know or learn something new.^[3][1]
2. nosy, indiscreet: wanting to know what does not concern one.^[3][4]
3. Arousing curiosity: strange, odd, surprising, unusual, original: Curios lucru! “a strange thing!”.^[3][9]

Word family

• curiozitate
• curioznic
• necurios

Related words

• cură
• curat
• sigur
• Latin cūriōsus

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2011–), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române (DELR), vol. I: A–B (2011), vol. II: C (2015–2018), București: Editura Academiei Române; continued online at delr.lingv.ro, p. s.v. curios
3. ^ a b c d DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 263
4. ^ a b c d e Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 580
5. ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. curios
6. ^ a b Ciorănescu, Alexandru (1958–1966), Diccionario etimológico rumano, La Laguna: Universidad de La Laguna (Romanian ed.: Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române, București: Saeculum, 2001), p. s.v. curios
7. ^ a b c d Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. curios
8. ^ Cihac, A. de (1870), Dictionnaire d'étymologie daco-romane I: Éléments latins comparés avec les autres langues romanes, Frankfurt am Main, p. 72
9. ^ a b c d Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 382
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ Pascu, Giorge (1925), Dictionnaire étymologique macédoroumain, 2 vols. (I: Les éléments latins et romans; II: Les éléments grecs, turcs, slaves, albanais, germaniques, magyars, néologismes, créations immédiates, obscurs), Iași: Cultura Națională, p. 1, 207
13. ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 365
14. ^ a b c Academia Română (1913–1949), Dicționarul limbii române (DA), ed. Sextil Pușcariu, tom I (A–B, C, D–De) and tom II (F–I, J–Lojniță), București: Socec / Universul / Monitorul Oficial și Imprimeriile Statului; page scans at cflr-scans.solirom.ro, p. s.v. curios
15. ^ a b c Gáldi, László (ed.) (1944), Samuel Klein: Dictionarium valachico-latinum. Primul dicționar al limbii române, Budapest: Királyi Magyar Pázmány Péter Tudományegyetemi Román Intézet (Klein's dictionary of 1801, with Gáldi's etymological study), p. 245
16. ^ a b Lesicon românescu-latinescu-ungurescu-nemțescu quare de mai mulți autori, în cursul a trideci și mai multor ani s-au lucrat (1825), Buda: Typographia Universității (the Lexicon of Buda, ed. Petru Maior et al.), p. 158
17. ^ Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 1, 284
18. ^ Negulici, I. D. (1848), Vocabular romînesc de toate vorbele streine întroduse pînă acum în limba romînească și de toate cuvintele ce s-ar mai putea introduce încă, București, p. s.v. curios