curry
Related to curry: curry powder
curry favor
To ingratiate oneself to someone Flattery won't work; the only way of currying favor with him is through hard work.
See also: curry, favor
curry favor with (one)
To ingratiate oneself to someone Flattery won't work; the only way of currying favor with him is through hard work.
See also: curry, favor
give (someone) (a bit of) curry
To berate, rebuke, or criticize (someone); to verbally or physically harass or assault (someone). A reference to the spiciness of curry, that is, making it "hot" for someone. Primarily heard in Australia. Protesters gave the defendant a bit of curry as he left the courtroom in the evening. Don't be afraid to give curry back when you are being pushed around. The wife gave me curry when I showed up late.
See also: bit, curry, give
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.
curry favor with someone
to try to win favor from someone. The lawyer tried to curry favor with the judge. It's silly to curry favor with the boss. Just act yourself.
See also: curry, favor
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs.
curry favor
Seek gain or advancement by fawning or flattery, as in Edith was famous for currying favor with her teachers. This expression originally came from the Old French estriller fauvel, "curry the fallow horse," a beast that in a 14th-century allegory stood for duplicity and cunning. It came into English about 1400 as curry favel-that is, curry (groom with a currycomb) the animal-and in the 1500s became the present term.
See also: curry, favor
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.
curry favour
ingratiate yourself with someone through obsequious behaviour.Curry here means ‘groom a horse or other animal’ with a coarse brush or comb. The phrase is an early 16th-century alteration of the Middle English curry favel , Favel (or Fauvel ) being the name of a chestnut horse in an early 14th-century French romance who epitomized cunning and duplicity. From this ‘to groom Favel’ came to mean to use on him the cunning which he personified. It is unclear whether the bad reputation of chestnut horses existed before the French romance, but the idea is also found in 15th-century German in the phrase den fahlen hengst reiten (ride the chestnut horse) meaning ‘behave deceitfully’.
See also: curry, favour
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary
curry ˈfavour (with somebody)
(British English) (American English curry ˈfavor (with somebody)) (disapproving) try to get somebody to like or support you by praising or helping them a lot: They have lowered taxes in an attempt to curry favour with the voters. Curry in this phrase means to groom (= clean and comb) a horse. The phrase was originally ‘curry favel’ (= a light brown horse that was thought to be clever and dishonest) and came to mean to try to please somebody who might be useful to you, especially by doing or saying things that you do not mean or believe.See also: curry, favour
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary
curry favor
To seek or gain favor by fawning or flattery.
See also: curry, favor
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition.
curry favor, to
To flatter insincerely in order to get ahead. The term, which has been known since the sixteenth century, comes from a fourteenth-century satirical romance about a horse named Fauvel. This horse was a symbol of cunning bestiality, and to curry (groom) it meant that one was enlisting its services of duplicity and other nasty traits. The English version of Fauvel at first was favel, which by the sixteenth century had been corrupted into “favor.”
See also: curry
The Dictionary of Clichés by Christine Ammer
curry favor
To ingratiate oneself through flattery or a willingness to please. “Curry” has nothing to do with the spice—it means to groom, as in the horse-keeping currycomb tool. One of the definitions of “stroke” is “suck up to,” and the image is similar—to get on a person's good side, whether or not flattery is warranted. “Favor” was originally “Fauvel,” the donkey who was the rogue hero of a 14th-century French romance. The image of grooming the beast to get on its good side or to win its favor is now the modern use of the word in the phrase.
See also: curry, favor
Endangered Phrases by Steven D. Price
- curry favor
- curry favor with
- curry favor with (one)
- curry favor, to
- curry favour
- good graces, to be/get in one's
- in favor of
- in favor of (someone or something)
- scratch (one's) back
- scratch someone's back