Curate
From Hull AWE
The word 'curate' is pronounced in two different ways depending on whether it is a noun or a verb.
- The noun 'curate' is pronounced with the stress on the first syllable - KYOO-rit, IPA: /'kjʊə rɪt/.
- A curate is a clergyman who has been appointed as an assistant to a parish priest, though sometimes a curate may have sole responsibility for a parish, in which case he is known as a curate-in-charge. The position held by a curate is a curacy (KYOO-ri-si, IPA: /'kjʊə rə sɪ/).
- The related French noun [le] 'curé' - usual English pronunciation KYOO-ray, IPA: /'kjʊə reɪ/, though kee-RAY, IPA: /ky 're/ would be closer to its pronunciation in French - does not mean 'curate' but 'parish priest'.
- The French noun [la] curée does not mean 'a female parish priest' (in any case, an impossibility in the present state of the Roman Catholic church) but 'the entrails left, or given to the hounds, when a kill has been made by a hunt', 'the umbles', 'the gralloch'; figuratively 'the spoils', 'booty' or 'prize'. (La Curée is the title of a novel by Emile Zola which deals with the 'spoils' made by the new bourgeoisie, in the 1860s and 1870s, from the upheaval at the start of the Second French Empire, particularly from Haussmann's reconstruction of Paris.)
- (In some Christian denominations a clergyman with spiritual and pastoral responsibility for a parish may be said to have a cure of souls, a translation of the Latin phrase cura animarum, which might be better translated as 'care of souls'.)
- The related French noun [le] 'curé' - usual English pronunciation KYOO-ray, IPA: /'kjʊə reɪ/, though kee-RAY, IPA: /ky 're/ would be closer to its pronunciation in French - does not mean 'curate' but 'parish priest'.
- A curate is a clergyman who has been appointed as an assistant to a parish priest, though sometimes a curate may have sole responsibility for a parish, in which case he is known as a curate-in-charge. The position held by a curate is a curacy (KYOO-ri-si, IPA: /'kjʊə rə sɪ/).
- As a verb 'curate' is pronounced with the stress on the second syllable - kyoo-RAYT, IPA: /kjʊə 'reɪt/.
- To curate is to organise and prepare the exhibits for (e.g., an art exhibition or an exhibition of other objects of cultural interest). The verb is transitive and is often used in the passive, as in 'This exhibition of paintings by Rubens has been curated by the staff of the National Gallery'. This verbal usage is first recorded in America in 1934; it appears in Britain after the second World War. It is a back-formation from curator, which has been used in the sense below since the seventeenth century.
- The noun for a person who curates an exhibition is curator (kyoo-RAY-ter, IPA: /kjʊə 'reɪ tə/); and the word is also often used of the administrative head of an art gallery or museum. The adjective from 'curator' is 'curatorial' (pronounced with the stress on the third syllable - kyoo-rer-TOR-i-erl, IPA: /,kjʊə rə 'tɔː rɪ əl/), and the position held by a curator is a curatorship (pronounced with the stress on the second syllable - kyoo-RAY-ter-ship, IPA: /kjʊə 'reɪ tə ʃɪp/).
- To curate is to organise and prepare the exhibits for (e.g., an art exhibition or an exhibition of other objects of cultural interest). The verb is transitive and is often used in the passive, as in 'This exhibition of paintings by Rubens has been curated by the staff of the National Gallery'. This verbal usage is first recorded in America in 1934; it appears in Britain after the second World War. It is a back-formation from curator, which has been used in the sense below since the seventeenth century.
The noun 'curate'and the verb 'curate' are a homographic pair which share a common etymology: both derive from the Latin noun cura (care) and the related verb curare (to take care of or attend to; (in the public sphere) to be in charge of or administer; and (in a medical context) to treat or cure).
