Definition of "cure"

When you're well enough off so's you don't have to fret about anything but your heft or your diseases you begin to get queer, I suppose. And the queerer the cure for those ailings the bigger the attraction. A place like the Right Livers' Rest was bound to draw freaks, same as molasses draws flies.

1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 5, in Mr. Pratt's Patients

'Cause if there's a cure for this, I don't want it / I don't want it

1976, Marilyn McLeod, Pamela Sawyer (lyrics and music), “Love Hangover”, performed by Diana Ross

Past hope! past cure!

c. 1591–1595 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act IV, scene i]

I do cures to-day and to-morrow.

1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], Luke 13:32

A disease among cattle, called the murrain, then prevailed to a very great extent through that district of Yorkshire. The cattle were made to pass through the smoke raised by this miraculous fire, and their cure was looked upon as certain.

1892, Michael Aislaibie Denham, The Denham Tracts, volume 2, page 50

Cold, hunger, prisons, ills without a cure.

1700, [John] Dryden, “Palamon and Arcite: Or, The Knight’s Tale. In Three Books.”, in Fables Ancient and Modern; […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […]

the proper cure of such prejudices

1763, Richard Hurd, On the Uses of Foreign Travel

Well into the twentieth century, Lunenburg, Nova Scotia's Grand Banks fleet stayed with sail power. "The Lunenburg cure," heavily salted on the schooners and then dried on flakes along the rocky sheltered coastline, was traded in the Caribbean.

1997, Mark Kurlansky, Cod, page 128

vicarages of great cure, but small valueThe spelling has been modernized.

1655, Thomas Fuller, edited by James Nichols, The Church History of Britain, […], new edition, volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), London: […] [James Nichols] for Thomas Tegg and Son, […], published 1837

This worke devysed isFor suche as do amys,And specyally to controuleSuch as have cure of soule, […] No good priest to offende,But suche dawes to amend, […]

c. 1503–1512, John Skelton, Ware the Hauke; republished in John Scattergood, editor, John Skelton: The Complete English Poems, 1983, page 61, lines 1–4, 25–26

[T]he Appropriator was the incumbent Parſon, and had the Cure of the Souls of the Pariſhioners, and that upon the Preſentation of the Appropriation, or upon the Diſſolution of the Abbey, the Church became void, and preſentative, as other Churches upon Reſignation, or Death of the Incumbent.

1704, Clem, 1704, page 4

During this interval, my thoughts were employed on some future means of supporting them; and at last a small Cure of fifteen pounds a year was offered me in a distant neighbourhood, where I could still enjoy my principles without molestation.

1766, [Oliver Goldsmith], chapter III, in The Vicar of Wakefield: […], volumes (please specify |volume=I or II), Salisbury, Wiltshire: […] B. Collins, for F[rancis] Newbery, […]; reprinted London: Elliot Stock, 1885,

“Enough,Yet not enough. A bullet through and through,High in the breast. Nothing but what good careAnd medicine and rest, and you a week,Can cure me of to go again.” The sameGrim giving to do over for them both. […]

2022 June 13, Robert Frost, New Hampshire, A Poem; with Notes and Grace Notes‎, DigiCat

Whose smile and frown, like to Achilles' spear, / Is able with the change to kill and cure.

1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act V, scene i]

Risk is everywhere. From tabloid headlines insisting that coffee causes cancer (yesterday, of course, it cured it) to stern government warnings about alcohol and driving, the world is teeming with goblins. For each one there is a frighteningly precise measurement of just how likely it is to jump from the shadows and get you.

2013 June 22, “Snakes and ladders”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8841, page 76

One desperate grief cures with another's languish.

c. 1591–1595 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act I, scene ii]