Cu·ri·ous a.
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.
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.
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.
4. Exciting attention or inquiry; awakening surprise; inviting and rewarding inquisitiveness; not simple or plain; strange; rare. “Acurious tale”
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.
Curious arts, magic. [Obs.]
Many . . . which used curious arts brought their books together, and burned them. --Acts xix. 19.
Syn: -- Inquisitive; prying. See Inquisitive.
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Curious arts
(Acts 19:19), magical arts; jugglery practised by the Ephesian
conjurers. Ephesus was noted for its wizard and the "Ephesian
spells;" i.e., charms or scraps of parchment written over with
certain formula, which were worn as a safeguard against all
manner of evils. The more important and powerful of these charms
were written out in books which circulated among the exorcists,
and were sold at a great price.