curioˈlogic, a. and n.
[A bad adaptation of Gr. κῡριολογικ-ός (of which the normal Eng. repr. is cyriologic) ‘speaking literally’ (f. κύριος regular, proper, etc. + λόγος speech, -λογια speaking), applied by Clemens Alexandrinus to hieroglyphics consisting of simple pictures, as opposed to συµβολικός symbolic.]
A. adj. Of or pertaining to that form of hieroglyphic writing in which objects are represented by pictures, and not by symbolic characters.
| 1669 Gale Crt. Gentiles i. i. xi. 64 The last and most perfect [mode of discourse and writing] is Hieroglyphic, whereof one is Curiologic, the other Symbolic. 1760 Antiq. in Ann. Reg. 156/2 The proper or curiologic character expressed the sun by a figure representing that luminary. 1816 J. Gilchrist Philos. Etym. 27 The kind of hieroglyphics which the Egyptians very properly named Curiologic. |
B. n. Representation by picture-writing.
| 1816 J. Gilchrist Philos. Etym. 33 Men were led on step by step from hieroglyphics or picture-writing, to curiologics, an abridged form of the former. 1864 R. F. Burton Dahome I. 206 In this land the umbrella is a rude kind of curiologics, faintly resembling European blazonry. |
So curioˈlogical a. = prec., curioˈlogically adv. curiˈology nonce-wd., representation by curiologic symbols.
| 1740 Warburton Div. Legat. iv. iv. iii, Hieroglyphics were written curiologically and symbolically. 1814 Edin. Rev. Nov. 147 Those hieroglyphics in which part of a material object is put for the whole are called curiological. 1816 J. Gilchrist Philos. Etym. 32 The same system of curiology must have prevailed at a very early period. 1862 H. Spencer First Princ. (1870) 349 The kuriological or imitative [form]. |