favour

plural favours

1. countableuncountableBritish standard spelling of favor.

   I need a favour. Could you lend me £5 until tomorrow, please?

   2 more examples

   Can you do me a favour and drop these letters in the post box?

   Since the mid-1980s, when Indonesia first began to clear its bountiful forests on an industrial scale in favour of lucrative palm-oil plantations, “haze” has become an almost annual occurrence in South-East Asia.

   2013 June 29, “Unspontaneous combustion”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8842, page 29

present singular third person favours · participle present favouring · participle past favoured · past favoured

1. British standard spelling of favor.

   Clacton and Walton are resorts mostly favoured by Londoners and only three trains run through to the Midlands and North.

   1959 April, B. Perren, “The Essex Coast Branches of the Great Eastern Line”, in Trains Illustrated, page 191

   3 more examples

   And the Angel came in vnto her, and said, Haile thou that art highly fauoured, the Lord is with thee: Blessed art thou among women.

   1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Luke 1:2

   The departure was not unduly prolonged. In the road Mr. Love and the driver favoured the company with a brief chanty running. “Got it?—No, I ain't, 'old on,—Got it? Got it?—No, 'old on sir.”

   1921, Ben Travers, chapter 5, in A Cuckoo in the Nest, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 1925, →OCLC

   Even in an era when individuality in dress is a cult, his clothes were noticeable. He was wearing a hard hat of the low round kind favoured by hunting men, and with it a black duffle-coat lined with white.

   1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 6, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC