curiosity

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   Inquisitiveness; the tendency to ask and learn about things by asking questions, investigating, or exploring.

   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. 2
   noun

   A unique or extraordinary object which arouses interest.

   He put the strangely shaped rock in his curiosity cabinet.

3. 3
   noun

   Careful, delicate construction; fine workmanship, delicacy of building.

   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 […]

4. 4
   noun

   something unusual -- perhaps worthy of collecting

5. 5
   noun

   a state in which you want to learn more about something

Etymology

From Middle English curiosite, variant of curiouste, from Anglo-Norman curiouseté, from Latin cūriōsitātem, accusative of cūriōsitās. By surface analysis, curious + -ity. Displaced native Old English firwitt.