cure

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /kjʊə(ɹ)/, /kjɔː(ɹ)/, /kjɜː(ɹ)/
• (General American) enPR: kyo͝or, kyûr, IPA^(key): /kjʊɹ/, /kjɝ/

• Audio (US)

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• (Norfolk) IPA^(key): /kɜː(ɹ)/
• Rhymes: -ʊə(ɹ), -ɔː(ɹ), -ɜː(ɹ)

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.

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.
   • 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]:

     Past hope! past cure!

   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Luke 13:32:

     I do cures to-day and to-morrow.

   • 1892, Michael Aislaibie Denham, The Denham Tracts, volume 2, page 50:

     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.

3. (figurative) A solution to a problem.
   • 1700, [John] Dryden, “Palamon and Arcite: Or, The Knight’s Tale. In Three Books.”, in Fables Ancient and Modern; […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC:

     Cold, hunger, prisons, ills without a cure.

   • 1763, Richard Hurd, On the Uses of Foreign Travel:

     the proper cure of such prejudices

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:

     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: […], volumes (please specify |volume=I or II), Salisbury, Wiltshire: […] B. Collins, for F[rancis] Newbery, […], →OCLC; reprinted London: Elliot Stock, 1885, →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

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

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.
   • 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 I, scene ii]:

     One desperate grief cures with another's languish.

10. (obsolete) To pay heed; to care; to give attention.

• crue, cuer, ecru, écru

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

• IPA^(key): /kyʁ/
• Rhymes: -yʁ

cure f (plural cures)

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

• cure de désintox
• cure de désintoxication
• n’avoir cure

• curer

cure

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

• “cure”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

• crue, crûe, écru, reçu

From Latin cūra.

cure f (plural curis)

1. treatment
2. cure

• curâ

cure

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

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

cure f

1. plural of cura

• écru

cure

1. Alternative form of curre
   • 1387–1400, Geoffrey Chaucer, “The Clerke of Oxenfordes Prologue”, in The Canterbury Tales, [Westminster: William Caxton, published 1478], →OCLC; republished in [William Thynne], editor, The Workes of Geffray Chaucer Newlye Printed, […], [London]: […] [Richard Grafton for] Iohn Reynes […], 1542, →OCLC:

     Of studie took he moost cure and moost heede.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

cure

1. Alternative form of quyrre (“quarry”)

From Old French cure.

cure f (plural cures)

1. desire

• French: cure

From Latin cūra.

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

1. medical attention
2. worry
3. desire

• curer

• Godefroy, Frédéric, Dictionnaire de l’ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du IX^e au XV^e siècle (1881) (cure)

cure

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

The probable confluence of two inherited Latin verbs: cōlāre (“to filter, strain”) present active infinitive of cōlō. By which is cognate to Albanian: kulloj. Secondly to currere

, present active infinitive of currō, from Proto-Italic *korzō, from Proto-Indo-European *ḱers-. Mostly replaced by the modified variant form curge.

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

1. (archaic) to run

   Synonyms: alerga, fugi

2. (archaic) to flow

   Synonym: curge

3. (archaic) to drain

   Synonym: scurge

cure (Cyrillic spelling цуре)

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

cure

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