a. Also 5 kurressh, 6 courrissh. [f. CUR + -ISH.]
1. Of, relating to, or resembling a cur.
1565–73. Cooper, Thesaurus, Canînus, doggish, currish.
1591. Harington, Orl. Fur., VI. lxiv. (1634), 46. One of these … Doth utter barking words with currish sound.
1607. Topsell, Four-f. Beasts (1673), 139. The Dogs of a Mungrel or Currish kinde.
1709. Lond. Gaz., No. 4545/4. An English Spaniel Dog … his Ears Currish.
c. 1875. Sir R. Christison, Autobiog. (1885), I. 248. Rabies is rare here … though dogs both of good breeds and currish are extremely numerous.
2. fig. Like a cur in nature; snappish, snarling, quarrelsome; mean-spirited, base, ignoble.
c. 1460. in Pol. Rel. & L. Poems (1866), 65. A kurresshe herte, a mouthe þat is curteise, Ful wele ye wote thei be not accordyng.
1547. Recorde, Judic. Ur., A iij. Those currish stomakes, which can do nothyng but barke and brall.
1596. Shaks., Merch. V., IV. i. 292. To change this currish Iew.
1614. T. Adams, Devil’s Banquet, 286. His snarling and currish inuectiues.
1705. Stanhope, Paraphr. (ed. 2), III. 274. Quarrelsome, and (if I may so speak) currish People, that bark and snarl at one another.
1820. Byron, trans. Morgante Maggiore, xxxiv. Currish renegade!
1888. J. Payn, Myst. Mirbridge, II. xiii. His currish nature prompted him to strike where no blow would be returned.
