[A familiar abbreviation of curiosity.] An object of art, piece of bric-à-brac, etc., valued as a curiosity or rarity; a curiosity; more particularly applied to articles of this kind from China, Japan, and the far East.
1851. H. Melville, Moby-Dick, iii. 20. He bought up a lot of ’balmed New Zealand heads (great curios, you know).
1861. Swinhoe, N. China Camp., 299. Everybody had some rare curios to show me, asking me their worth.
b. Comb., as curio-buying, -hunter, -maniac.
1886. Pall Mall Gaz., 13 Jan., 4/1. As a baby is moved to put everything it sees into its mouth, so the curiomaniac seeks to make everything within the limits of the craze his own.
1886. F. H. H. Guillemard, Cruise Marchesa, I. 41–2. To the curio-hunter the Liu-kiu Islands are a most unprofitable ground.
1888. Pall Mall Gaz., 19 Sept., 2/1. By a first-class Japanese curio-dealer, too, you are only shown one thing at a time.
