cully, a dupe, a simpleton. Butler, Hudibras, ii. 2. 781; Otway, Cheats of Scapin, i. 1 (Scapin). [To make a fool of, to take in, Pope, Wife of Bath, 161.]
culm, summit; ‘On giddy top and culm’, Misfortunes of Arthur, in Hazlitt’s Dodsley, iv. 313. G. kulm, a mountain-top; L. culmen.
culme, soot, smut. Golding, Metam. ii. 232; fol. 18, bk. (1603); as adj. sooty, black, id. vii. 529; fol. 86, bk. The same word as coom, coal-dust, soot, dirt,’ in prov. use in Scotland, Ireland, and various parts of England, see EDD. (s.v. Coom, sb.1 1). ME. culme (colme), ‘fuligo’ (Prompt. EETS., see note, no. 477).
culver-down, dove’s down. Machin, Dumb Knight, iii. 1 (Epire). OE. culfre, a dove.
curats, a piece of armour for the body, a cuirass; ‘He casts away his curats and his shield’, Harington, Orl. Fur.; spelt curets, Chapman, Iliad iii, 343. Treated as pl., with a sing. curat, Spenser, F. Q. v. 8. 34. Cp. Ital. corazza, a cuirass (Florio). See Dict.
curber, a thief who hooks things through a window; an angler. Middleton, Roaring Girl, v. 1 (Moll). From curb, a cant word for a hook, see NED.
curiosity, nicety, fastidiousness, excessive, scrupulousness. Massinger, City Madam, i. 1 (Tradewell); ‘Concerning the enterring of her . . . I pray you let the same be performed without all curiositie and superstition’, Holland’s Plutarch, Morals, 533 (Bible Word-Book).
curiousness, punctilious scrupulousness. Massinger, Parl. of Love, i. 4 (Chamont); Unnat. Combat, iii. 4 (Beauf. Junior).
curry, a ‘quarry’, i.e. slaughtered game. Chapman, tr. Iliad, xvi. 145, 693. OF. cuiree, intestines of a slain animal; the part given to the hounds, so called because wrapped in the skin (cuir); O. Prov. corada, ‘entrailles’ (Levy). See NED. (s.v. Quarry, sb.1).
curry-favell, one who solicits favour by flattery. Puttenham, Eng. Poesie, iii. 24 (ed. Arber, 299); ‘Curryfavell, a flatterer, estrille faveau’, Palsgrave; altered to curry-favour, ‘A number of prodigal currie favours’, Holinshed, Chron. ii. 144 (NED.); Curriedow, a curry-favour or flatterer, Phillips. In earlier English ‘Favel’ occurs as the proper name of a fallow-coloured horse. The fallow horse was proverbial as the type of hypocrisy and duplicity, with reference to the ‘equus pallidus’ of Apoc. vi. 8, which was explained as representing the hypocrites who gain a reputation for sanctity by the ascetic pallor of their faces (see Rom. Rose, 7391-8). With the phrase ‘to curry favel’ cp. OF. estriller, torcher Fauvel, adopted in German: den fahlen Hengst streichen. See NED. (s.v. Favel) for origin, and see [Favell].