curator

American  

[kyoo-ray-ter, kyoor-ay-, kyoor-uh-ter] / kjʊˈreɪ tər, ˈkjʊər eɪ-, ˈkjʊər ə tər /

noun

• curators
  plural

1. the person in charge of a museum, art collection, etc.

2. a person who selects content for presentation, as on a website.

3. a manager; superintendent.

4. 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.

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curator British  

/ kjʊəˈreɪtə /

noun

1. the administrative head of a museum, art gallery, or similar institution

2. law a guardian of a minor, mentally ill person, etc

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• curatorship
  noun
• subcurator
  noun
• subcuratorship
  noun
• curatorial
  adjective
• subcuratorial
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• curators
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of curator

First recorded in 1325–75; from Latin, equivalent to cūrā(re) “to care for, attend to” ( see cure) + -tor -tor

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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.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

curator curators

Jason Jones, senior curator of animal well-being at Georgia Aquarium, says "breeding is a natural part of an animal's life".

From BBC ● Oct. 17, 2026

Whereas the curator is obsessed with evocative details, down to the placement of embroidery needles, the rather mopey fairy tale deals purely in generalities.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 16, 2026

The promise, said curator Wendy Kaplan, was that the fictional woman would have more time for “tennis and hanging with … friends.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 7, 2026

"It's been this open debate for a century," said Neill Wallis, curator of Florida archaeology, bioarchaeology and the Ceramic Technology Laboratory at the Florida Museum of Natural History.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 6, 2026

“It’s not quite a lamp,” her mother, renowned curator and archaeologist Dr. K. P. Shah, had told her the first time she showed it to Aru.

From "Aru Shah and the End of Time" by Roshani Chokshi

Bloomer contacted biologists and museum curators across the country, asking them to examine their collections for unusually large specimens.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 16, 2026

With precise plotting and symbolic pieces, the curators have neatly fit the era into the center’s jewel-box spaces.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 10, 2026

Above all, though, the commission’s recommendations faced resistance among the museum’s curators to the sort of great-man-of-history approach that Brooks and others were hankering for.

From Salon ● Sep. 25, 2026

Williams College Museum of Art curators did not respond to requests for comment.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 22, 2026

The author talked about how this uproar was probably also good for art historians and museum curators.

From "Chasing Vermeer" by Blue Balliett

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Related Words

• administrator
• conservator
• custodian
• director
• manager

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