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Given to examination, investigation, or research; searching; curious. A young, inquisitive, and sprightly genius. I. Watts.

Given to investigation; inquisitive; curious; searching.

A curious South American bird (Anhima, or Palamedea, cornuta), often domesticated by the natives and kept with poultry, which it defends against birds of prey. It has a long, slender, hornlike ornament on its head, and two sharp spurs on each wing. Although its beak, feet, and legs resemble those of gallinaceous birds,…

, etc. "Garden knots." Bacon. Flowers worthy of paradise, which, not nice art In beds and curious knots, but nature boon Poured forth profuse on hill, and dale, and plain. Milton.

Having intersecting lines or figures. The west corner of thy curious knotted garden. Shak.

The lower or apparently anterior petal of an orchidaceous flower, often of a very curious shape.

A curious colubriform snake of the genus Xyphorhynchus, from Madagascar. It is brownish red, and its hose is prolonged in the form of a sharp blade.

(Megaderma lyra), inhabiting India and Ceylon. It is remarkable for the enormous size and curious shape of the nose membrane and ears. -- Lyre turtle (Zoöl.), the leatherback.

shrubs (Malpighiaceæ), some of them climbing plants, and their stems forming many of the curious lianes of South American forests.

of Central and South America. some are bright-colored, and others have the wings and tail curiously ornamented. The name is sometimes applied to related birds of other families.

ys outworn. Shak. Map lichen (Bot.), a lichen (Lecidea geographica.) growing on stones in curious maplike figures. Dr. Prior.

Any spiral marine shell of the genus Persona, having a curiously twisted aperture.

(Zoöl.), any one of numerous species of solitary bees of the genus Osmia. They construct curious nests of hardened mud and sand. -- Mason moth (Zoöl.), any moth whose larva constructs an earthen cocoon under the soil. -- Mason shell (Zoöl.), a marine univalve shell of the genus Phorus; -- so called because it cement…

A person that is skilled or curious in medals; a collector of medals. Addison.

A name of certain curious orchids which bear three kinds of flowers formerly referred to three genera, but now ascertained to be sexually different forms of the same genus (Catasetum tridentatum, etc.).

An order of curious parasitic worms found on crinoids. The body is short and disklike, with four pairs of suckers and five pairs of hook-bearing parapodia on the under side.

Overscrupulous or exacting; hard to please or satisfy; fastidious in small matters. Curious not knowing, not exact but nice. Pope. And to taste Think not I shall be nice. Milton.

In a peculiar manner; strangely; queerly; curiously. "A figure a little more oddly turned." Locke. A great black substance,... very oddly shaped. Swift.

ian plant (Mantisia saltatoria) of the Ginger family, sometimes seen in hothouses. It has curious flowers which have some resemblance to a ballet dancer, whence the popular name. Called also dancing girls. -- Opera glass, a short telescope with concave eye lenses of low power, usually made double, that is, with a tube…

n, and normally three petals and three sepals, all adherent to the ovary. The flowers are curiously shaped, often resembling insects, the odd or lower petal (called the lip) being unlike the others, and sometimes of a strange and unexpected appearance. About one hundred species occur in the United States, but several t…