Shorouk Express
Cursi is a Spanish adjective that describes something or someone that’s kitsch, corny or cheesy.
According to Spain’s Royal Academy, the country’s main Spanish language institution, cursi is an adjective which defines something or someone that may appear elegant or delicate, but is really pretentious or of bad taste.
There are similar words which are used a lot in Spanish, such as hortera or cutre, but cursi applies more to something that’s kitschy in a mawkish kind of way, whereas the aforementioned ones are more used to describe something that’s straight up tacky.
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A room that’s fully decorated in pink could be defined as cursi. Over-the-top romantic talk (like ‘I will love you for a million years, my honeybun’) can also be called cursi. Hello Kitty? Cursi. A teddy bear holding a big red heart? Also cursi. Justin Bieber’s 2010 hit “Baby”? You get our drift.
A more appropriate synonym in Spanish for cursi is repipi.
Cursiladas are corny things or actions typical of cheesy people and cursilería is the quality of being corny.
So where does the word cursi come from?
It first appeared in the Spanish language at the beginning of the 19th century but its origin is disputed.
Some linguists think it’s an abbreviation of cursive, a type of calligraphy that became fashionable in Spain after it was developed in England at the end of the 18th century.
Other scholars trace the origin of the word cursi back to the Sicur sisters of Cádiz, seamstresses who copied the Paris fashion of the day, but exaggerated it and used embellishments to hide the stains, tears and shine of their worn-out dresses.
When they walked around town, passers-by would repeat their surname out as a form of ridicule – ”Sicur! ‘Sicur! ‘Sicur! ‘Sicur!’ – which may explain why the overly flamboyant style became known as cursi.
If you hadn’t guessed it already, cursi has a negative connotation in Spanish.
So whenever you come across something that leaves you asking for a bucket because it’s so sickly-sweet, too sentimental or just straight up corny, the word to use in Spanish is cursi.
Examples:
¡Hola, mi bomboncito! ¿Quieres un masaje en los pies?
Hello, my sugarcup! Would you like a foot massage?
¡No seas tan cursi, anda! Llámame cariño o amor.
Please! Don’t be so sickly-sweet! Call me darling or love.
Me regaló unos pendientes en forma de cupidos bastante cursis.
He gave me some pretty corny cupid-shaped earrings.
Para mí la saga de Crepúsculo es lo más cursi que he visto en mi vida.
I find the Twilight saga to be the cheesiest thing I’ve seen in my life.
