Obs. or arch. Also 6 curee, curie. [a. F. curée, in 14–15th c. cuirée, f. cuir hide, corresponding to a L. type *coriāta lit. hide-ful, skin-ful, the entrails of the deer being given to the hounds on the skin: see Littré, and Notes to Sir Tristrem (1886), I. 474. Cf. QUARRY.]
The portions of an animal slain in the chase that were given to the hounds; the cutting up and disembowelling of the game; transf. any prey thrown to the hounds to be torn in pieces, or seized and torn in pieces by wild beasts: see QUARRY.
c. 1500. Melusine, xix. 99. Þe herte … was hadde out of the watre and the curee made & gyue to the houndes as custome is to doo.
1600. Gowrie’s Consp., in Select. Harl. Misc. (1793), 192. His maiestie not staying vppon the curie of the deir, as his vse is.
c. 1611. Chapman, Iliad, XVI. 145. A den of wolves … New come from currie of a stag. Ibid., XVI. 693. Two fierce kings of beasts, oppos’d in strife about a hind Slain on the forehead of a hill, both sharp and hungry set, And to the currie never came but like two deaths they met.
1830. R. Chambers, Life Jas. I., I. ix. 247. It was James’s practice to superintend the curry or dissection of the deer.
[1859. Helps, Friends in C., Ser. II. II. vi. 134. A bill is thrown before the house as the curée to the hounds; and it is torn to pieces by everybody.]
