English
curiosity
Pronunciation
  • enPR: kyoo͞r"ēŏs'ətē, IPA: /ˌkjʊəɹɪˈɒsɪti/
Noun

curiosity

  1. (uncountable) Inquisitiveness; the tendency to ask and learn about things by asking questions, investigating, or exploring. [from 17th c.]
    • 1886, Robert Louis Stevenson, Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde
      It was the first time that the lawyer had been received in that part of his friend's quarters; and he eyed the dingy, windowless structure with curiosity, and gazed round with a distasteful sense of strangeness as he crossed the theatre
  2. A unique or extraordinary object which arouses interest. [from 17th c.]
    He put the strangely shaped rock in his curiosity cabinet.
  3. (obsolete) Careful, delicate construction; fine workmanship, delicacy of building. [16th-19th c.]
    • 1631, John Smith, Advertisements, in Kupperman 1988, p. 81:
      wee built a homely thing like a barne, set upon Cratchets, covered with rafts, sedge, and earth, so also was the walls; the best of our houses of the like curiosity, but the most part farre much worse workmanship […]
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