different between curious vs intuitive

English

Etymology 1

From Middle English curious (“careful, meticulous; ingenious, skilful; expert, learned; concerned about (something); eager; curious, inquisitive; prying; carefully or skilfully made; exquisite, fine; sophisticated; recondite; magic or occult; absorbing, painstaking”) [and other forms], from Old French curios, curius (modern French curieux (“curious, inquisitive; interesting, quaint, unusual”)), and its etymon Latin c?ri?sus (“careful; complicated, elaborate; careworn; curious, inquisitive; meddlesome, prying”), from c?ra (“care, concern; anxiety; sorrow; attention; administration, management; command, office; guardianship”) (from Proto-Indo-European *k?eys- (“to heed”)) + -?sus (suffix meaning ‘full of, prone to’ forming adjectives from nouns). The English word is cognate with Italian curioso (“curious, inquisitive”), Occitan curios, Portuguese curioso (“curious, inquisitive; odd, out of the ordinary”), Spanish curioso (“curious, inquisitive; interesting; odd, strange; quaint”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?kj??.?i.?s/, /?kj??-/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?kj?.?i.?s/, /?kj?.i.?s/
• Rhymes: -???i?s
• Hyphenation: cu?ri?ous

Adjective

curious (comparative more curious or curiouser, superlative most curious or curiousest)

1. Tending to ask questions, or to want to explore or investigate; inquisitive; (with a negative connotation) nosy, prying.

   Synonyms: enquiring, inquiring; (obsolete) exquisitive; investigative; (rare) peery

   Antonyms: incurious, noncurious, uncurious
2. Caused by curiosity.
3. Leading one to ask questions about; somewhat odd, out of the ordinary, or unusual.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:strange

   Antonym: uncurious
4. (obsolete) Careful, fastidious, particular; (specifically) demanding a high standard of excellence, difficult to satisfy.
5. (obsolete) Carefully or artfully constructed; made with great elegance or skill.

Usage notes

The comparative and superlative forms curiouser and curiousest are regarded as informal or nonstandard.

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

Etymology 2

curi(um) +? -ous

Adjective

curious (not comparable)

1. (chemistry, rare) Containing or pertaining to trivalent curium.

References

Further reading

• curiosity on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• curious (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Middle French intuitif, from Medieval Latin intuitivus, from Latin intueri.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?n?tju??t?v/

Adjective

intuitive (comparative more intuitive, superlative most intuitive)

1. Spontaneous, without requiring conscious thought.
   • 2013 February 16, Laurie Goodstein, “Cardinals Size Up Potential Candidates for New Pope”, NYTimes.com:

     These impressions [of potential papal candidates], collected from interviews with a variety of church officials and experts, may influence the very intuitive, often unpredictable process the cardinals will use to decide who should lead the world’s largest church.

   The intuitive response turned out to be correct.

2. Easily understood or grasped by intuition.

   Designing software with an intuitive interface can be difficult.

3. Having a marked degree of intuition.

Antonyms

• unintuitive
• nonintuitive
• counterintuitive

Related terms

• intuition
• intuit

Translations

Noun

intuitive (plural intuitives)

1. One who has (especially parapsychological) intuition.

French

Adjective

intuitive

1. feminine singular of intuitif

German

Pronunciation

Adjective

intuitive

1. inflection of intuitiv:
   1. strong/mixed nominative/accusative feminine singular
   2. strong nominative/accusative plural
   3. weak nominative all-gender singular
   4. weak accusative feminine/neuter singular

Italian

Adjective

intuitive

1. feminine plural of intuitivo

Norwegian Bokmål

Adjective

intuitive

1. definite singular of intuitiv
2. plural of intuitiv

Norwegian Nynorsk

Adjective

intuitive

1. definite singular of intuitiv
2. plural of intuitiv