Other forms: curs
A cur is a bad-tempered mongrel dog — or a contemptible man. Both meanings are old and both are insults.
The dog sense is archaic and belongs to a time when a mongrel was despised rather than fashionable. The human sense is Victorian melodrama, where calling a man a cur was a serious insult and often preceded a challenge. Neither is in ordinary modern use, which is why the word now sounds theatrical. It survives in historical fiction and in deliberate period flavour, and mongrel is the neutral word for the animal.
1nouncurAn aggressive or worthless mongrel dog.
“A thin cur followed them down the lane.”
2nouncontemptibleA contemptible man.
“He called the man a cur and turned away.”
Old Norse
kurr — grumbling
Middle English
curre — watchdog, small hunting dog, mongrel, mutt
English, today
cur
From Middle English curre (“watchdog, small hunting dog, mongrel, mutt”), perhaps of Middle Low German - or gmq - origin, possibly from Old Norse kurr (“grumbling”), itself of imitative of the sound origin. Compare Middle Dutch corre (“domestic dog, yard dog, watch-dog”), dialectal Dutch korre (“dog, yard dog”), dialectal Swedish kurre (“a dog”). Compare also Old Norse kurra (“to growl; grumble”), Middle Low German kurren, korren (“to growl”). Compare also querie.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA