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

This time, unfortunately, Adams has demonstrated an increasing hostility toward immigrant New Yorkers and a suspicious interest in currying favor with the incoming president. —Peter L. Markowitz, New York Daily News, 22 Jan. 2025

But since Election Day, a parade of business leaders, especially from the tech sector, have toasted him, many traveling to Mar-a-Lago to show support and curry favor. —Andrew Ross Sorkin, New York Times, 21 Jan. 2025

The big picture: Just days before taking office, Trump launched the Official Trump meme coin, sparking immediate questions of whether it could be used as a vehicle to funnel money to the Trump Organization by people seeking to curry favor with the administration. —Brady Dale, Axios, 21 Jan. 2025

Some companies have announced policy changes likely to curry favor with Trump since his election win, such as rolling back diversity, equity and inclusion (or DEI) programs. —Yaakov Katz, Newsweek, 17 Jan. 2025

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