01 a. Difficult to please or satisfy; solicitous to be correct; careful; scrupulous; nice; exact.
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1.
Difficult to please or satisfy; solicitous to be correct; careful; scrupulous; nice; exact.[Obs.]“Little curious in her clothes.” — Fuller.“How shall we, If he be curious, work upon his faith?” — Beau. & Fl.
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2.
Exhibiting care or nicety; artfully constructed; elaborate; wrought with elegance or skill.“To devise curious works.” — Ex. xxxv. 32“His body couched in a curious bed.” — Shak.
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3.
Careful or anxious to learn; eager for knowledge; given to research or inquiry; habitually inquisitive; prying; -- sometimes with after or of.“It is a pity a gentleman so very curious after things that were elegant and beautiful should not have been as curious as to their origin, their uses, and their natural history.” — Woodward.
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4.
Exciting attention or inquiry; awakening surprise; inviting and rewarding inquisitiveness; not simple or plain; strange; rare.“A multitude of curious analogies.” — Macaulay.“Many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore.” — E. A. Poe.“Abstruse investigations in recondite branches of learning or sciense often bring to light curious results.” — C. J. Smith.“Many . . . which used curious arts brought their books together, and burned them.” — Acts xix. 19.
Syn.
Inquisitive; prying. See Inquisitive.