curry favor

idiomatic phrase

Synonyms of curry favor next

: 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

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Now, those leaders have another way to curry favor with President Trump: helping Musk and his companies. —

John Hyatt, Forbes, 14 Feb. 2025 Observers saw the two actions as linked, an attempt to curry favor with the new administration, and very much at odds with how the entertainment industry mounted a public resistance against the first Trump presidency. —

Samantha Masunaga, Los Angeles Times, 11 Feb. 2025 Egypt and Qatar, meanwhile, saw delivering the agreement as an early opportunity to curry favor with the administration. —

Dennis Ross, Foreign Affairs, 3 Feb. 2025 So companies and governments alike are treading carefully to curry favor with, or at least avoid angering, the mercurial president of the world’s most powerful nation. —

Jeanna Smialek, New York Times, 21 Jan. 2025 See all Example Sentences for curry favor

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.