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

Tariffs have long been used to advance U.S. trade policies by both the right and left, as well as to curry favor with labor unions. —Aimee Picchi, CBS News, 20 June 2024

Sabatini, a former state rep, has kissed up slavishly to Donald Trump, often by repeatedly bad-mouthing fellow Republicans — including Ron DeSantis — in an effort to curry favor with the former president. —Scott Maxwell, Orlando Sentinel, 17 June 2024

And so, in a futile attempt to curry favor with Justine, Cora books a flight home to surprise Justine at her graduation party. —Manuel Betancourt, Variety, 14 June 2024

As a man who pays the price for standing up to his boss, another struggling to cope with his wife’s return from a near-death experience and a third eager to curry favor with the leaders of a cult, Plemons emerges alongside Stone as the film’s co-lead. —Matt Brennan, Los Angeles Times, 13 June 2024

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