ANSTHRLD - A Cat in it's Curiousity

[Timothy A. McDaniel]

I dragged out Reaney and Wilson.  Nothing for "Curious" under "Cur-"
et seq., tho there are names that start with "Cur-" with different
meanings (Curley, Curlew, Curr, Currer, Curt, Curtler, ...)

In the next few pages, there's

Curtis, ...: Curteis de Cappella 1130 ... Richard Curteis 1166,
Robert le Curteis 1168, Ralph le Curtoys 1230, John le Korteys 1238,
Henry Courteys 1297 ... OFr corteis, curteis, later cortois, courtois
'courteous' (a1300 MED), in feudal society denoting a man
of good education.  Used also as a personal name.

Curzon: Robert le Curezun 12th, Richard Cursun c1180 ...
Katherine la Curzoun 1316 ... the name was also clearly
a nickname from OFr courson, a diminutive of curt 'short',
c.f. cour{c,}on, courchon 'a piece of land shorter than
the others'

Daffe: Lefeke Daffe 1279 ... Geoffrey daffe 1296 ... ME daff
'simpleton, fool'.

Daft: John, Robert Daft c1230 ... OE ged{ae}ft 'gentle, meek'
ME daffte 'foolish, stupid'.

Dain ... Robert le Dine 1201 ... Richard le Digne 1222 ...
William le Deyne 1327 ... John Deynes 1327 ...
(i) ME digne, deyn(e), Fr digne (11th), perhaps OFr *dein
'worthy, honourable' (1297 NED); (ii) ME dain(e), OFr *deigne,
Burgundian doigne, Fr digne 'haughty, reserved' (c1500 NED);
(ii) OFr deien, dien, modFr doyen 'dean' ...

Dangerous: Richard Dangerus 1201 ... Robert le Dangerus 1243-4 ...
A derivative of OFr danier, danger, in one or other of
its early senses [from Dangar: 'power, dominion' or
'hesitation, reluctance, coyness'].

R&W have a tendency to go for the earliest citations and not
so much for later uses, or that's the impression I get.
But from the few examples above, I gather that you might have
"le/la [French adjective]" or "[French-derived adjective]"
or "[English-derived adjective]", but in those few pages and
few minutes I saw no examples of "the [adjective]" -- all the
definite articles I saw were French.

Daniel de Lincolia
-- 
Tim McDaniel is tmcd at jump.net; if that fail,
    tmcd at us.ibm.com is my work account.
"To join the Clueless Club, send a followup to this message quoting everything
up to and including this sig!" -- Jukka.Korpela at hut.fi (Jukka Korpela)
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