curiously

Everyday

1. In a way that shows you want to know or learn about something: «The cat sniffed the box curiously.» tree →
2. Strangely or oddly: «The house was curiously quiet.» tree →
3. (at the start of a sentence) «Curiously, …» means «It is strange that …». tree →

In the lessons

A how-word used often in stories to show a character looking or asking with interest, and to point out something odd. In Alice in Wonderland Alice looks about her curiously and famously says «Curiouser and curiouser!», a playful wrong form she made up when things got stranger and stranger.

Examples

• Alice peeped curiously into the little door. tree →
• The puppy curiously sniffed the new toy. tree →
• The street was curiously empty that morning. tree →
• Curiously, nobody had heard the bell. tree →
• She looked curiously at the strange box. tree →
• The Mole asked curiously what lived in the Wild Wood. tree →
• As Dorothy entered they looked at her curiously, and one of them whispered: tree →

Note

From «curious» + «-ly». Two senses: interested (looked curiously) and strangely (curiously quiet). Noun: curiosity. «Curiouser» is not correct English: it is Alice's joke from Lewis Carroll.

In Jewish tradition

Interpretation: In Psalm 139 it means skilfully and with great care. Tradition reads it as God's careful work in shaping each person, hidden from sight. In the primary lessons: A how-word used often in stories to show a character looking or asking with interest, and to point out something odd. In Alice in Wonderland Alice looks about her curiously and famously says «Curiouser and curiouser!», a playful wrong form she made up when things got stranger and stranger.

Examples

• It derives from the root נפ״שׁ NPSh, having to do with breathing, refreshing, and resting; its etymological relationships with curiously similar roots like נשׁ״ם NShM ‘to breathe, pant’, נשׁ״ף NShP ‘to blow’, and נשׁ״ב NShB ‘to blow’ are unclear. (Sefer Yetzirah, Sefaria community translation) tree →
• the Pythagorean philosophy, corresponds curiously to Joseph ben Uziel who wrote down the Sefer Yetzirah. (Mordell, The Origin of Letters and Numerals according to Sefer Yetzirah (1914)) tree →
• My frame was not hidden from Thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. (Writings PSA.139.15, JPS 1917) tree →

Note

From «curious» + «-ly». Two senses: interested (looked curiously) and strangely (curiously quiet). Noun: curiosity. «Curiouser» is not correct English: it is Alice's joke from Lewis Carroll.