Definition of "currish"
currish
adjective
comparative more currish, superlative most currish
(now rare) Ignoble, mean-spirited.
Quotations
Gratiano:O, be thou damn'd, inexecrable dog!And for thy life let justice be accused.Thou almost makest me waver in my faith,To hold opinion with Pythagoras,That souls of animals infuse themselvesInto the trunks of men: thy currish spiritGovern'd a wolf, who, hang'd for human slaughter,Even from the gallows did his fell soul fleet,And, whilst thou lay'st in thy unhallow'd dam,Infused itself in thee; for thy desiresAre wolfish, bloody, starved, and ravenous.
c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act IV, scene i]
God's vengeance, and all the plagues of Egypt come not upon us, since we are so currish one towards another, so respectless of God and our neighbours, and by our crying sins pull these miseries upon our own heads.
1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Printed by John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, partition II, section 1, member 3