Curiosity

1828.sorabji.com > Webster's 1828 English Dictionary

Browse Webster's 1828 Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M
N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Noah Webster's 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language is regarded by many as the finest English dictionary ever published. The dictionary is available in many forms. I made the content available here for my own purposes, out of personal admiration for this particular dictionary.

You can also look up words at dict.sorabji.com

See my other projects: weather, dict, payphones, mailboxes, receipts, found photos, court documents, what is my ip?, and more at sorabji.com.

CURIOSITY, n. [L. See Curious.]
1. A strong desire to see something novel, or to discover something unknown, either by research or inquiry; a desire to gratify the senses with a sight of what is new or unusual, or to gratify the mind with new discoveries; inquisitiveness. A mans curiosity leads him to view the ruins of Balbec, to investigate the origin of Homer, to discover the component parts of a mineral, or the motives of anothers actions.
2. Nicety; delicacy.
3. Accuracy; exactness; nice performance; curiousness; as the curiosity of workmanship.
4. A nice experiment; a thing unusual or worthy of curiosity.
There hath been practiced a curiosity, to set a tree on the north side of a walk and at a little height, to draw it through the wall, etc.
5. An object of curiosity; that which excites a desire of seeing, or deserves to be seen, as novel and extraordinary.
We took a ramble together to see the curiosities of this great town.
[The first and last senses are chiefly used.]