ETYMOLOGY
Italian, poco curante, (caring little), from poco (a little, rather) + curante (present participle of curare (to care)); from Latin curare (to cure, to heal), ? from the name of Seigneur Pococurante, a fictional apathetic Venetian senator in Voltaire’s Candide (1759)
EXAMPLE
“…Leave we my mother – (truest of all the Poco-curante’s of her sex!) – careless about it, as about every thing else in the world which concerned her; – that is, – indifferent whether it was done this way or that, – provided it was but done at all …”
From: The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
By Laurence Sterne, 1762
PRONUNCIATION
poh-koh-kyuh-RAN-tee
Lexicophilia 