Wiktionary

cure

See also: Cure, curé, and curê

English

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Pronunciation

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Etymology 1

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From Middle English cure, borrowed from Old French cure (“care, cure, healing, cure of souls”), from Latin cura (“care, medical attendance, cure”). Displaced native Old English hǣlu, but survived as heal.

Noun

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cure (plural cures)

  1. A method, device or medication that restores good health.
    Synonyms: curative, mithridate, treacle
    • 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter V, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y., London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:
      When you're well enough off so's you don't have to fret about anything but your heft or your diseases you begin to get queer, I suppose. And the queerer the cure for those ailings the bigger the attraction. A place like the Right Livers' Rest was bound to draw freaks, same as molasses draws flies.
    • 1976, Marilyn McLeod, Pamela Sawyer (lyrics and music), “Love Hangover”, performed by Diana Ross:
      'Cause if there's a cure for this, I don't want it / I don't want it
  2. An act of healing or state of being healed; restoration to health after a disease, or to soundness after injury.
  3. (figurative) A solution to a problem.
  4. A process of preservation, as by smoking.
  5. Cured fish.
    • 1997, Mark Kurlansky, Cod, page 128:
      Well into the twentieth century, Lunenburg, Nova Scotia's Grand Banks fleet stayed with sail power. "The Lunenburg cure," heavily salted on the schooners and then dried on flakes along the rocky sheltered coastline, was traded in the Caribbean.
  6. A process of solidification or gelling.
  7. (engineering) A process whereby a material is caused to form permanent molecular linkages by exposure to chemicals, heat, pressure or weathering.
  8. (obsolete) Care, heed, or attention.
    • 1655, Thomas Fuller, The Church-history of Britain; […], London: […] Iohn Williams […], →OCLC, (please specify |book=I to XI):
      vicarages of great cure, but small value
  9. Spiritual charge; care of soul; the office of a parish priest or of a curate.
    • c. 1503–1512, John Skelton, Ware the Hauke; republished in John Scattergood, editor, John Skelton: The Complete English Poems, 1983, →OCLC, page 61, lines 1–4, 25–26:
      This worke devysed is
      For suche as do amys,
      And specyally to controule
      Such as have cure of soule, […]
      No good priest to offende,
      But suche dawes to amend, […]
    • 1704, Clem[ent] Spelman, “To the Reader”, in Henry Spelman, De Non Temerandis Ecclesiis, Churches Not to Be Violated. A Tract of the Rights and Respects Due unto Churches. […], 6th edition, London: […] Awnsham and John Churchill, […]; republished in Two Tracts […], London: […] Awnsham and John Churchill, […], 1704, →OCLC, page 4:
      [T]he Appropriator was the incumbent Parſon, and had the Cure of the Souls of the Pariſhioners, and that upon the Preſentation of the Appropriation, or upon the Diſſolution of the Abbey, the Church became void, and preſentative, as other Churches upon Reſignation, or Death of the Incumbent.
    • 1766, [Oliver Goldsmith], chapter III, in The Vicar of Wakefield: […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), Salisbury, Wiltshire: […] B. Collins, for F[rancis] Newbery, […], →OCLC:
      During this interval, my thoughts were employed on some future means of supporting them; and at last a small Cure of fifteen pounds a year was offered me in a distant neighbourhood, where I could still enjoy my principles without molestation.
  10. That which is committed to the charge of a parish priest or of a curate.
    Synonym: curacy
Derived terms
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Translations
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Etymology 2

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From Middle English curen, from Old French curer, from Latin cūrāre. Partially displaced Old English ġehǣlan, whence Modern English heal.

Verb

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cure (third-person singular simple present cures, present participle curing, simple past and past participle cured)

  1. (transitive) To restore to health.
    Synonym: heal
    Unaided nature cured him.
    • 1923 October, Robert Frost, “[Grace Notes.] Not to Keep.”, in New Hampshire […], New York, N.Y.: Henry Holt and Company, →OCLC, page 97:
      “Enough,
      Yet not enough. A bullet through and through,
      High in the breast. Nothing but what good care
      And medicine and rest, and you a week,
      Can cure me of to go again.” The same
      Grim giving to do over for them both.
  2. (transitive) To bring (a disease or its bad effects) to an end.
    Unaided nature cured his ailments.
    • 1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene i]:
      Whose smile and frown, like to Achilles' spear, / Is able with the change to kill and cure.
    • 2013 June 22, “Snakes and ladders”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8841, page 76:
      Risk is everywhere. From tabloid headlines insisting that coffee causes cancer (yesterday, of course, it cured it) to stern government warnings about alcohol and driving, the world is teeming with goblins. For each one there is a frighteningly precise measurement of just how likely it is to jump from the shadows and get you.
  3. (transitive) To cause to be rid of (a defect).
    Experience will cure him of his naïveté.
  4. (transitive) To prepare or alter, especially by chemical or physical processing for keeping or use.
    The smoke and heat cures the meat.
  5. To preserve (food), typically by salting.
  6. (intransitive) To bring about a cure of any kind.
  7. (intransitive) To undergo a chemical or physical process for preservation or use.
    The meat was put in the smokehouse to cure.
  8. (intransitive) To solidify or gel.
    The parts were curing in the autoclave.
  9. (obsolete, intransitive) To become healed.
  10. (obsolete) To pay heed; to care; to give attention.
Derived terms
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Translations
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Etymology 3

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From curiosity.

Noun

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cure (plural cures)

  1. (UK, slang, obsolete) An eccentric person.
    • 1855, Mark Lemon, ‎Henry Mayhew, ‎Tom Taylor, Punch (volumes 29-32, page 201)
      The mud was thick — the crossing clean — / A well dressed man, genteel of mien — / Walked through the first (he might be poor), / The sweeper muttered, "He's a Cure."

References

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  • John Camden Hotten (1873) The Slang Dictionary

Anagrams

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French

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Etymology

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Inherited from Middle French cure, from Old French cure, from Latin cūra, from Proto-Indo-European *kʷeys- (“to heed”).

Pronunciation

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Noun

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cure f (plural cures)

  1. (archaic) care, concern
  2. (obsolete) healing, recovery
  3. (medicine) treatment; cure
  4. (religion) vicarage, presbytery

Derived terms

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Verb

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cure

  1. inflection of curer:
    1. first/third-person singular present indicative/subjunctive
    2. second-person singular imperative

Further reading

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Anagrams

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Friulian

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Etymology

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From Latin cūra.

Noun

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cure f (plural curis)

  1. treatment
  2. cure
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Galician

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Verb

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cure

  1. inflection of curar:
    1. first/third-person singular present subjunctive
    2. third-person singular imperative

Italian

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Pronunciation

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  • IPA(key): /ˈku.re/
  • Rhymes: -ure
  • Hyphenation: cù‧re

Noun

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cure f

  1. plural of cura

Anagrams

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Middle English

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Etymology 1

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Noun

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cure

  1. Alternative form of curre

Etymology 2

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Noun

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cure

  1. Alternative form of quyrre (“quarry”)

Middle French

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Etymology

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From Old French cure.

Noun

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cure f (plural cures)

  1. desire

Descendants

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  • French: cure

Old English

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Pronunciation

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Verb

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cure

  1. inflection of ċēosan:
    1. second-person singular preterite indicative
    2. singular preterite subjunctive

Old French

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Etymology

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From Latin cūra.

Noun

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cure oblique singular, f (oblique plural cures, nominative singular cure, nominative plural cures)

  1. medical attention
  2. worry
  3. desire
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Descendants

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References

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  • Godefroy, Frédéric, Dictionnaire de l’ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du IXe au XVe siècle (1881) (cure)

Portuguese

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Verb

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cure

  1. inflection of curar:
    1. first/third-person singular present subjunctive
    2. third-person singular imperative

Romanian

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Etymology

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Probably derived from Latin cōlāre (“to filter, strain”) as well as Latin currere, from Proto-Italic *korzō, from Proto-Indo-European *ḱers-. Mostly replaced by the modified variant form curge.

Verb

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a cure (third-person singular present curge, past participle curs) 3rd conjugation

  1. (archaic) to run
    Synonyms: alerga, fugi
  2. (archaic) to flow
    Synonym: curge
  3. (archaic) to drain
    Synonym: scurge
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Serbo-Croatian

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Noun

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cure (Cyrillic spelling цуре)

  1. inflection of cura:
    1. genitive singular
    2. nominative/accusative/vocative plural

Spanish

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Verb

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cure

  1. inflection of curar:
    1. first/third-person singular present subjunctive
    2. third-person singular imperative
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