Meanings
present singular third person curries favor · participle present currying favor · participle past curried favor · past curried favor · alternative UK curry favour
- idiomaticTo seek to gain favor by flattery or attention.
Other people would say so, and would allege that he was currying favor with Bulstrode for the sake of making himself important and getting on in the world.
1871–1872, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter XVIII, in Middlemarch […], volume (please specify |volume=I to IV), Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, book (please specify |book=I to VIII)5 more examples
[…]always promising to pay, promising to pay, tomorrow, and dying today, insolvent; seeking to curry favor, to get custom, by how many modes, only not state-prison offences;[…]
1854 August 9, Henry D[avid] Thoreau, Walden; or, Life in the Woods, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, →OCLCPoor old Uncle Silas—why, it’s pitiful, him trying to curry favor that way—so hard pushed and poor, and yet hiring that useless Jubiter Dunlap to please his ornery brother.
1896, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter 1, in Tom Sawyer, DetectiveAnd what of those thousands and tens of thousands who join the church because it is a part of the regime of respectability, a way to make the acquaintance of the rich, to curry favor and obtain promotion, to get customers if you are a tradesman, to extend your practice if you are a professional man?
1917, Upton Sinclair, The Profits of Religion […][T]he full text of these exchanges, provided to The Atlantic, shows that Manafort attempted to leverage his leadership role in the Trump campaign to curry favor with a Russian oligarch close to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.
2017 October 2, Julia Ioffe, Franklin Foer, “Did Manafort Use Trump to Curry Favor With a Putin Ally?”, in The Atlantic, archived from the original on 10 Jan 2018Unlike Sansa, Daenerys can’t rely on her family name to curry favor; unlike Jon or even Arya, she can’t regale the Northerners with tales of exploits, though that’s probably for the best when it comes to her “liberating” Yunkai and Meereen.
2019 May 5, Danette Chavez, “Campaigns are Waged On and Off the Game Of Thrones Battlefield (Newbies)”, in The A.V. Club, archived from the original on 28 Jan 2021
Synonyms & antonyms
verbseek favor by fawning or flattery
Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.
Origin
- Frenchfauve“chestnut, reddish-yellow, or fawn”
- Englishcurry favor
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.
More words from French
Full word history & related roots →Translations
Arabic يتملق
- يتملق (yatamallaq)to seek to gain favor by flattery
Chinese Mandarin 巴結 /巴结
- 巴結 /巴结 (bājie)to seek to gain favor by flattery
Dutch een wit voetje halen, slijmen
- een wit voetje halento seek to gain favor by flattery
- slijmento seek to gain favor by flattery
Finnish mielistellä
- mielistelläto seek to gain favor by flattery
French flatter, cirer les bottes
- flatterto seek to gain favor by flattery
- cirer les bottesto seek to gain favor by flattery
German sich einschmeicheln, sich anbiedern
- sich einschmeichelnto seek to gain favor by flattery
- sich anbiedernto seek to gain favor by flattery
- sich einschleimento seek to gain favor by flattery
Hindi चापलूसी करना
- चापलूसी करना (chāplūsī karna)to seek to gain favor by flattery
Japanese 機嫌を取る, 胡麻をする
- 機嫌を取る (kigen o toru)to seek to gain favor by flattery
- 胡麻をする (goma o suru)to seek to gain favor by flattery
Māori whakaporepore
- whakaporeporeto seek to gain favor by flattery
Polish podlizywać się, przymilać się
- podlizywać sięto seek to gain favor by flattery
- przymilać sięto seek to gain favor by flattery
- nadskakiwaćto seek to gain favor by flattery
- zabiegać o względyto seek to gain favor by flattery
Russian заи́скивать, подли́зываться
- заи́скивать (zaískivatʹ)to seek to gain favor by flattery
- подли́зываться (podlízyvatʹsja)to seek to gain favor by flattery
Tamil காக்கா பிடித்தல்
- காக்கா பிடித்தல் (kākkā piṭittal)to seek to gain favor by flattery
Turkish yaltaklanmak
- yaltaklanmakto seek to gain favor by flattery
Vietnamese lấy lòng, xu nịnh
- lấy lòngto seek to gain favor by flattery
- xu nịnhto seek to gain favor by flattery
- nịnhto seek to gain favor by flattery
- nịnh nọtto seek to gain favor by flattery
- nịnh hótto seek to gain favor by flattery
Cite this entry
curry favor. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/curry%20favor
“curry favor.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/curry%20favor. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “curry favor,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/curry%20favor.
Source: curry favor on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.