curator
Americannoun
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the person in charge of a museum, art collection, etc.
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a person who selects content for presentation, as on a website.
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a manager; superintendent.
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Law. a guardian of a minor or any other person who is unable to care for their own affairs, especially with regard to their property.
noun
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the administrative head of a museum, art gallery, or similar institution
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law a guardian of a minor, mentally ill person, etc
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of curator
First recorded in 1325–75; from Latin, equivalent to cūrā(re) “to care for, attend to” ( see cure) + -tor -tor
Explanation
If you are the curator of the school art show, you choose which pieces will be in it and decide how they will be displayed. A curator is someone who manages an art collection or exhibit. The kind of artwork a curator manages does not have to be the visual kind. You can curate a series of readings by selecting which authors read in it and who reads together. A curator is the person who gives the overall shape and feel to an art exhibit. In law, if you are the curator of someone's estate, you have been given legal power to manage it for someone who is too young or mentally unable to do it themselves.
Vocabulary lists containing curator
Aru Shah and the End of Time
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The Red Pyramid
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The Boys Who Challenged Hitler
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
"Frogs that are so unique looking as this can become victims of their own fame," said Benjamin Tapley, curator of amphibians and reptiles at the Zoological Society of London.
From BBC • Jul. 9, 2026
The cave examined in this study had previously been identified by Juan Almonte Milan, curator of paleobiology at the Dominican Republic's Museo Nacional de Historia Natural, as an exceptionally rich fossil deposit.
From Science Daily • Jul. 5, 2026
Ms. Barratt, a former curator of American art at the Metropolitan Museum, is senior curator-at-large for the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and writing a book on Martha Washington.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 26, 2026
For 26-year-old curator and art commentator James Marshall, it is important the history of Hockney's early work is not forgotten.
From BBC • Jun. 13, 2026
More broadly, he became the unofficial curator of cyclotron history and an assiduous chronicler of the spread of the technology, keeping Ernest supplied with frequent reports from the field.
From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
