cu ‧ ri ‧ os ‧ i ‧ ty /ˌkjʊəriˈɒsəti, ˌkjʊəriˈɒsɪti $ ˌkjʊriˈɑːs-/ BrE AmE noun ( plural curiosities )
1 . [singular, uncountable] the desire to know about something:
I opened the packet just to satisfy my curiosity.
The news aroused a lot of curiosity among local people.
She decided to follow him out of curiosity.
Margaret looked at him with curiosity.
curiosity about
Children have a natural curiosity about the world around them.
a man of immense intellectual curiosity
It was idle curiosity that made me ask.
2 . [countable] someone or something that is interesting because they are unusual or strange:
a house full of old maps and other curiosities
In the past, men who wanted to work with children were regarded as something of a curiosity.
It’s not worth much, but I kept it for its curiosity value.
3 . curiosity killed the cat used to tell someone not to ask too many questions about something
• • •
COLLOCATIONS
■ verbs
▪ have a lot of curiosity
Bright children often have a lot of curiosity.
▪ satisfy somebody's curiosity (=find out something that you want to know)
I decided to call him in order to satisfy my curiosity.
▪ arouse somebody's curiosity (=make someone want to know about something)
New people in the village always aroused our curiosity.
▪ curiosity gets the better of somebody/overcomes somebody (=makes you do something that you are trying not to do)
Curiosity got the better of me and I opened her diary.
▪ pique somebody's curiosity (=make someone want to know about something)
Something she said had piqued his curiosity.
■ adjectives
▪ natural curiosity
The children are encouraged to follow their natural curiosity, and learn about what interests them.
▪ intellectual curiosity
Highly intelligent people are full of intellectual curiosity.
▪ scientific curiosity (=about scientific things)
Their scientific curiosity led to the development of the vaccine.
▪ idle curiosity (=wanting to know something for no particular reason)
Out of idle curiosity, I looked out of the window.
▪ open curiosity (=that you do not try to hide)
The children were staring at her with open curiosity.
▪ great/intense curiosity
His disappearance had obviously aroused great curiosity.
▪ insatiable curiosity (=used when someone is always curious)
He had an insatiable curiosity about why people do the things they do.
▪ mild curiosity (=not great)
I watched what was happening with mild curiosity.
▪ morbid curiosity (=a feeling of wanting to know about death or other bad things that happen)
the morbid curiosity of the onlookers at the trial
■ phrases
▪ be burning with curiosity (=want to know about something very much)
She was burning with curiosity about him, but was too polite to ask.
▪ be an object/a subject of curiosity (=be something or someone that makes people curious)
Anyone new was always the object of our curiosity.
■ curiosity + NOUN
▪ curiosity value (=the quality or advantage of being something that people want to know about)
When the shop was new it had curiosity value.