S. curu n. “skill (of the hand), craft, magic” (Category: Craft, Trade)
This word had a long history and various different meanings in Sindarin. In notes associated with The Shibboleth of Fëanor from 1968 Tolkien said that S. curu was the equivalent of Q. curwë “skill of the hand” (VT41/10), and in Notes on Names (NN) from 1957 Tolkien glossed S. curu as “craft”, though he clarified that it “applied to all cunning or (?wily) things especially when intended as mysterious or secret” (PE17/83). In Late Notes on Verb Structure (LVS) from 1969 Tolkien said it derived from ✶kurwē “power, ability”, and explain it this way:
S curu in curunír “wizard”, us[ually] applied to exceptional powers espec. of mind, ability to make one’s will effective. It thus approaches some uses of our “magic”, esp. when applied to powers not understood by the speaker, but it does not even then (except perhaps when the word was used by Men) connote any alteration or disturbance of the “natural order”, which to the Eldar were either “miracles” performed by agents of the One or counterfeits by delusion or by means other than miraculous which impressed the uninstructed as supernatural (PE22/151).
In The Etymologies of the 1930s N. curu was simply glossed “cunning” (Ety/KUR; EtyAC/KUR), whereas in Tolkien’s writings of the 1910s-20s G. curu/ᴱN. curw was glossed “magic” (GL/28). Its use in S. Curunír (Sindarin name of Saruman) is instructive: this name was variously translated as “Man of Skill” (UT/390), “Man of Craft” (UT/390), “one of cunning devices” (RC/389), and “a man of craft, wizard” (EtyAC/KUR).
It seems that curu thus applies to craft of hand and mind which allows its user to perform remarkable feats of skill not part of common knowledge. This included feats of power and mind that were natural to the Elves but seemed like magic to Men. It was not “true” magic however, which was limited to the miracles of higher beings likely the Valar. Thus strictly speaking curu did not apply to the supernatural, at least as the Elves perceived it.
References ✧ PE17/83; PE22/151; SA/curu; VT41/8, 10
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| √kuru- > curu- | [kurwe] > [kurwe] > [kurw] > [kuru] | ✧ VT41/10 |
N. curu n. “cunning” (Category: Reason, Intelligence)
References ✧ Ety/KUR; EtyAC/KUR
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| cyry | plural | ✧ EtyAC/KUR |
| #guru | soft-mutation; c-mutation | ✧ EtyAC/KUR |
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| ᴹ√KUR > curw > curu | [kurwe] > [kurwe] > [kurw] > [kuru] | ✧ Ety/KUR |
| ᴹ√KUR > cyry | [kurwi] > [kyrwi] ? [kyrui] > [kyry] | ✧ EtyAC/KUR |
ᴱN. curw n. “magic” (Category: Magic, Witchcraft, Sorcery)
Reference ✧ PE13/141 ✧ “magic”
Derivations
G. curu n. “magic” (Category: Magic, Witchcraft, Sorcery)
References ✧ GL/28; LT1A/Tolli Kuruvar
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