to dress (tanned hides) by soaking, scraping, beating, coloring, etc.
to beat; thrash.
Idioms
curry favor, to seek to advance oneself through flattery or fawning: His fellow workers despised him for currying favor with the boss.
Origin of curry
2
1250–1300;Middle Englishcor(r)ayen, cor(r)eyen < Anglo-Frenchcurreier, cognate with Old Frenchcorreer, earlier conreer to make ready < Vulgar Latin*conrēdāre; see corody
early 16c., altered by folk etymology from curry favel (c.1400) from Old French correier fauvel "to be false, hypocritical," literally "to curry the chestnut horse," which in medieval French allegories was a symbol of cunning and deceit. See curry (v.). Old French fauvel is from a Germanic source and ultimately related to fallow (adj.); the sense here is entangled with that of similar-sounding Old French favele "lying, deception," from Latin fabella, diminutive of fabula (see fable (n.)).
curry
v.
late 13c., "to rub down a horse," from Anglo-French curreier "to curry-comb a horse," from Old French correier "put in order, prepare, curry," from con-, intensive prefix (see com-), + reier "arrange," from a Germanic source (see ready). Related: Curried; currying.
curry
n.
the spice, 1680s, from Tamil kari "sauce, relish for rice."
“Currying favor” with someone means trying to ingratiate oneself by fawning over that person: “The ambassador curried favor with the dictator by praising his construction projects.”
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.
