cure
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: note: pour–poor merger
ipa: /kjɔː(r)/
note: without the pour–poor merger
ipa: /kjʊə(ɹ)/
ipa: /kjɵː/
ipa: /kjoː/
ipa: /kjʉwə/
enpr: kyo͝or
enpr: kyûr
ipa: /kjʊɹ/
ipa: /kjɝ/
ipa: /kjʉːə/
ipa: /kjʉːɹ/
ipa: /kjuːɹ/
ipa: /kɜː(ɹ)/
rhymes: -ʊə(ɹ)
rhymes: -ɔː(ɹ)
rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)
Forms: form: cures
Etymology: 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.
Senses: examples: text: 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.
ref: 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter V, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:
text: 'Cause if there's a cure for this, I don't want it / I don't want it
ref: 1976, Marilyn McLeod, Pamela Sawyer, “Love Hangover”, performed by Diana Ross:
synonyms: curative
mithridate
treacle
glosses: A method, device or medication that restores good health.
examples: text: Past hope! past cure!
ref: c. 1591–1595 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene i]:
text: I do cures to-day and to-morrow.
ref: 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Luke 13:32:
text: A disease among cattle, called the murrain, then prevailed to a very great extent through that district of Yorkshire. The cattle were made to pass through the smoke raised by this miraculous fire, and their cure was looked upon as certain.
ref: 1892, Michael Aislaibie Denham, The Denham Tracts, volume 2, page 50:
glosses: An act of healing or state of being healed; restoration to health after a disease, or to soundness after injury.
examples: text: Cold, hunger, prisons, ills without a cure.
ref: 1700, [John] Dryden, “Palamon and Arcite: Or, The Knight’s Tale. In Three Books.”, in Fables Ancient and Modern; […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC:
text: the proper cure of such prejudices
ref: 1763, Richard Hurd, On the Uses of Foreign Travel:
glosses: A solution to a problem.
glosses: A process of preservation, as by smoking.
examples: text: 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.
ref: 1997, Mark Kurlansky, Cod, page 128:
glosses: Cured fish.
glosses: A process of solidification or gelling.
topics: engineering
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
glosses: A process whereby a material is caused to form permanent molecular linkages by exposure to chemicals, heat, pressure or weathering.
examples: text: vicarages of great cure, but small value
ref: 1655, Thomas Fuller, The Church-history of Britain; […], London: […] Iohn Williams […], →OCLC, (please specify |book=I to XI):
glosses: Care, heed, or attention.
examples: text: 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, […]
ref: 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:
text: [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.
ref: 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:
text: 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.
ref: 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:
glosses: Spiritual charge; care of soul; the office of a parish priest or of a curate.
synonyms: curacy
glosses: That which is committed to the charge of a parish priest or of a curate.
Derived terms: an ounce of prevention is better than an ounce of cure
an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure
an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure
anti-cure
cure for cancer
cureless
cure time
faith-cure
Kneipp's cure
Lunenburg cure
mind cure
miscure
overcure
prevention is better than cure
pro-cure
Salisbury's cure
Schroth's cure
Schweninger's cure
sun cure
sweetcure
take the cure
the cure is worse than the disease
undercure
water cure
Wiltshire cure