curator

English

Alternative forms

• curatour (obsolete)

Etymology

From Latin cūrātor (“one who has care of a thing, a manager, guardian, trustee”), from cūrāre (“to take care of”), from cūra (“care, heed, attention, anxiety, grief”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /kjʊəˈɹeɪtə(ɹ)/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• (General American, Canada) IPA^(key): /kjʊəˈɹeɪtɚ/, [kjʊəˈɹeɪɾɚ]
• (Australia, New Zealand) IPA^(key): /kjʊəˈɹæɪtə(ɹ)/, [kjʊəˈɹæɪɾə(ɹ)]

  • Audio (Brisbane):

    (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪtə(ɹ)

Noun

curator (plural curators)

1. A person who manages, administers or organizes a collection, either independently or employed by a museum, library, archive or zoo.
   • 1975, Tom Wolfe, The Painted Word:

     The Club became like town meetings for the entire New York art scene, attracting dealers, collectors, uptown curators like Alfred Barr, critics, and just about any other culturati who could wrangle their way in.

   • 2003, Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code, Doubleday, →ISBN, page 3:

     Renowned curator Jacques Saunière staggered through the vaulted archway of the museum's Grand Gallery.

2. One appointed to act as guardian of the estate of a person not legally competent to manage it, or of an absentee; a trustee.
3. A member of a curatorium, a board for electing university professors, etc.
4. A person or entity who controls, manages, or oversees another.
5. (cricket) A groundsman who looks after a cricket field.

Derived terms

• biocurator
• cocurator
• curatorial
• curatorium
• curatorship
• curatory
• curatress
• curatrix
• subcurator

Related terms

• curate
• curated
• curative
• cure

Translations

person who manages, administers or organizes a collection

• Arabic: منظم معارض
• Bulgarian: куратор (bg) m (kurator)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 館長 / 馆长 (zh) (guǎnzhǎng), 策展人 (cèzhǎnrén)

• Crimean Tatar: kurator
• Czech: kurátor (cs) m
• Danish: kurator c
• Dutch: conservator (nl) m, conservatrice (nl) f
• Esperanto: kuratoro, kuratorino (female)
• Estonian: please add this translation if you can
• Finnish: kuraattori (fi)
• French: conservateur (fr) m, conservatrice (fr) f
• Georgian: კურატორი (ḳuraṭori)
• German: Kurator (de) m, Kuratorin (de) f, Museumskurator m, Museumskuratorin f
• Hebrew: אוצר \ אוֹצֵר (he) m (otsér), אוצרת \ אוֹצֶרֶת f (otséret) (at a museum or archive)
• Hindi: please add this translation if you can
• Hungarian: kurátor (hu)
• Irish: coimeádaí m
• Italian: please add this translation if you can
• Japanese: 学芸員 (gakugeiin)
• Korean: 큐레이터 (ko) (kyureiteo)
• Macedonian: кустос m (kustos)
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: kurator m

  Nynorsk: kurator m

• Occitan: conservator (oc) m, conservador (oc) m, curator m, comisari m
• Polish: kurator (pl) m, kuratorka (pl) f
• Portuguese: curador (pt) m, curadora f
• Punjabi: ਪਰਬੰਧਕ (parbandhak), ਵਿਵਸਥਾ ਕਰਨ ਵਾਲਾ (vivsathā karan vālā), ਵਿਵਸਥਾਪਕ m (vivsathāpak)
• Romanian: conservator (ro) m, conservatoare (ro) f, intendentă (ro) f, intendentă (ro) f
• Russian: кура́тор (ru) m (kurátor)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: упра̀витељ m

  Latin: upràvitelj (sh) m

• Spanish: curador (es) m, curadora (es) f, comisario (es) m, conservador (es) m, recopilador m, comisariador m, comisariante m or f
• Swedish: curator (sv) c
• Tagalog: agsinop
• Thai: ภัณฑารักษ์ (th) (pan-taa-rák)
• Turkish: küratör (tr)
• Ukrainian: please add this translation if you can

one appointed to act as guardian; trustee

• German: Kurator (de) m, Kuratorin (de) f, Vormund (de) m (also female), Vormundin f, Vormündin f, Vormunder m (obsolete), Vormünder (de) m (obsolete), Vormünderin f (obsolete), Sachwalter (de) m, Sachwalterin (de) f, Treuhänder m, Treuhänderin f,

member of a curatorium, a board for electing university professors, etc

• German: Kurator (de) m, Kuratorin (de) f

See also

• custodian
• keeper
• manager
• overseer

Further reading

• “curator”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin Eli Smith, editors (1895–1910), “curator”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.

Dutch

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin cūrātor.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˌkyˈraː.tɔr/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: cu‧ra‧tor

Noun

curator m (plural curatoren, diminutive curatortje n)

1. curator, one who manages a collection
2. curator, one who manages an estate
3. liquidator appointed by a judge after bankruptcy

Derived terms

• curatorium

Descendants

• → Indonesian: kurator

Latin

Alternative forms

• coerātor

Pronunciation

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [kuːˈraː.tɔr]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [kuˈraː.tor]

Etymology 1

Etymology tree

Proto-Italic *kʷoizā

Latin cūra

Proto-Indo-European *-h₂

Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂

Proto-Indo-European *-yéti

Proto-Indo-European *-eh₂yéti

Proto-Indo-European *-h₂tiinflu.

Proto-Italic *-ājō

Proto-Italic *-āō

Latin -ō

Latin cūrō

Proto-Indo-European *-tōr

Proto-Italic *-tōr

Latin -tor

Latin cūrātor

From cūrō + -tor.

Noun

cūrātor m (genitive cūrātōris); third declension

1. who pays heed about the state of an object, warden, overseer, watchman, lookout
2. who procures an affair for somebody, agent, commissionary
3. specifically, who procures patrimonial matters of one who has been deemed incapable to procure them himself
4. (New Latin, Germany) the regulatory supervisor over a university

Declension

Third-declension noun.

	singular	plural
nominative	cūrātor	cūrātōrēs
genitive	cūrātōris	cūrātōrum
dative	cūrātōrī	cūrātōribus
accusative	cūrātōrem	cūrātōrēs
ablative	cūrātōre	cūrātōribus
vocative	cūrātor	cūrātōrēs

Descendants

• → Bulgarian: кура́тор (kurátor)
• → Medieval Greek: κουράτωρ (kourátōr)
• → Catalan: curador
• → Czech: kurátor
• → Dutch: curator
• → English: curator
• → Finnish: kuraattori
• → French: curateur
• → Friulian: curadôr
• → Galician: curador
• → Georgian: კურატორი (ḳuraṭori)
• → German: Curator, Kurator
• → Italian: curatore
• → Macedonian: куратор (kurator)
• → Norwegian:

  → Norwegian Bokmål: kurator

  → Norwegian Nynorsk: kurator

• → Polish: kurator
• → Portuguese: curador
• → Romanian: curator
• → Russian: кура́тор (kurátor)
• → Serbo-Croatian: kùrātor, ку̀ра̄тор
• → Spanish: curador
• → Crimean Tatar: kurator

Etymology 2

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

Verb

cūrātor

1. second/third-person singular future passive imperative of cūrō

References

• “curator”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• "curator", in Charles du Fresne du Cange, Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• “curator”, in Gaffiot, Félix (1934), Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• “curator”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper’s Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “curator”, in William Smith et al., editor (1890), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin

Romanian

Etymology

Etymology tree

Proto-Italic *kʷoizā

Latin cūra

Proto-Indo-European *-h₂

Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂

Proto-Indo-European *-yéti

Proto-Indo-European *-eh₂yéti

Proto-Indo-European *-h₂tiinflu.

Proto-Italic *-ājō

Proto-Italic *-āō

Latin -ō

Latin cūrō

Proto-Indo-European *-tōr

Proto-Italic *-tōr

Latin -tor

Latin cūrātorlbor.

French curateurbor.

Romanian curator

Borrowed from French curateur, a learned borrowing from Latin cūrātor.

Noun

curator m (plural curatori)

1. curator

Declension

	singular		plural
	indefinite	definite	indefinite	definite
nominative-accusative	curator	curatorul	curatori	curatorii
genitive-dative	curator	curatorului	curatori	curatorilor
vocative	curatorule		curatorilor

Swedish

Noun

curator c

1. an exhibitions curator (person organizing art exhibitions)

   Synonym: kurator

Declension

Declension of curator

		nominative	genitive
singular	indefinite	curator	curators
	definite	curatorn	curatorns
plural	indefinite	curators	curators
	definite	-	-

References

• “curator”, in Svensk ordbok [Dictionary of Swedish] (in Swedish)
• “curator”, in Svenska Akademiens ordlista [Wordlist of the Swedish Academy] (in Swedish)
• “curator”, in Svenska Akademiens ordbok [Dictionary of the Swedish Academy] (in Swedish)