curry favor
To seek to gain favor by flattery or attention.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
“He tries to curry favor with the boss by always agreeing.”
“The new employee constantly brings coffee to the manager to curry favor before the performance review.”
“The student volunteered for every extra task during the semester, hoping to curry favor with the professor before the final grades were posted.”
“By offering excessive praise to the committee members, the politician hoped to curry favor and secure their support for his controversial new proposal.”
folk etymology
Originally from a French poem Roman de Fauvel, written in the early 1300s; Fauvel was a conniving stallion, and the play was a satire on the corruption of social life. The name Fauvel points to the French fauve (“chestnut, reddish-yellow, or fawn”), another sense of fauve meaning the class of wild animals whose coats are at least partly brown, and the medieval belief that a fallow horse was a symbol of deceit and dishonesty. The phrase curry Fauvel, then, referred to currying (“combing”) the horse, and was altered (as folk etymology) by later speakers to curry favor.
- 01
do me a favour
Expressing incredulity.
- 02
give curry
To direct abusive language at (someone) angrily.
- 03
not do someone any favors
To reflect badly on or to hurt in some way.
- 04
not do someone any favours
Alternative form of not do someone any favors.
- 05
return the favor
To do something for someone similar to what they did for you.
- 06
Ruby
[Cockney slang]curry
Last updated August 10, 2026