curry favor

Cultural  

1. “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.”

---

curry favor Idioms  

1. 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.

---

Example Sentences

President Trump has a reputation for trying to curry favor with investors.

From MarketWatch • Mar. 27, 2026

Both Paramount and Netflix sought to curry favor with the White House, with Paramount winning out.

From Barron's • Feb. 27, 2026

He was sent to Rome in 1488 as a gesture of cultural diplomacy by Lorenzo, who hoped to curry favor from Carafa and thereby secure his vote for his son to become the next pope.

From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 21, 2026

Several of the party’s candidates scurried around the Anaheim convention center, trying to curry favor with the state’s most liberal activists while also drawing contrasts with their rivals.

From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 5, 2025

I couldn’t believe that I’d been looking to curry favor with this man.

From "The Journey of Little Charlie" by Christopher Paul Curtis