curry favor

idiomatic phrase

: to seek to gain favor by flattery or attention

… eager to curry favor with superiors by reporting any trivial transgression.

—Robert Wallace and H. Keith Meltony

Instead of rolling back environmental regulations to curry favor with corporate interests, California has passed the toughest green laws in the nation …

—Alexander Nazaryan

Examples of curry favor in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Each one grew up in a home that required her to curry favor with volatile and inconstant parents—a menacing father figure, a recessive and enabling mother—and each found a fragile safety in her caretakers’ occasional good will. —Katy Waldman, New Yorker, 12 Jan. 2026

Rubio’s job is to help America and Americans, not curry favor with his base in Miami-Dade County. —Pat Beall, Sun Sentinel, 9 Jan. 2026

This was not a concession, nor an attempt to trade people or curry favor. —Jacqueline Charles, Miami Herald, 7 Jan. 2026

This is not to curry favor with the United States but because India does not want to increase its vulnerability to its rival China. —Tanvi Madan, Foreign Affairs, 16 Dec. 2025

Word History

Etymology

Note: The idiom curry favor is an alteration by folk etymology of curry favell, Middle English core favele, currey favel "to use insincere flattery to gain personal advantage," literally, "to curry the fallow-colored horse," a translation of Middle French estriller/torchier Fauvel "to use trickery, deceive," literally, "to curry/clean Fauvel" ("the fallow one," as a name for a horse). Old & Middle French falve, fauve "brownish-yellow, light brown (of an animal's coat)" and its derivatives have the additional meaning "false, hypocritical," probably in part due to the similarity in sound to faux "false"; hence la fauve asnele (ca. 1170) "hypocrisy, falsehood" (literally, "the fallow ass"), fauvoier (13th century) "to deceive," Old Occitan falveta "art of beguiling." Fauvel and Fauvain as horse's names are the focus of various idioms, as estriller Fauvel "to curry Fauvel," that denote duplicitous behavior. In the satirical French poem, Roman de Fauvel, composed ca. 1310-16, a horse or donkey named Fauvel becomes king by the grace of Fortuna ("Lady Fortune") and, having taken possession of the palace stable, is curried and cleaned by the hypocritical nobility and clergy of the realm.

First Known Use

1557, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for curry favor

• ritonavir
• aver
• braver
• craver
• favour
• flavor
• flavour
• graver
• paver
• quaver
• raver
• saver