curry favor

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.”

Idioms and Phrases

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

Foreign leaders have long used presidential visits to curry favor with the man in the Oval Office.

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Some business lobbyists said that donating to the Trust for the National Mall was a good way to curry favor with the administration without giving to an explicitly political committee.

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And there’s another concern: If these changes are mainly the result of opportunistic business leaders eager to curry favor with a president unusually active in wanting to direct media coverage, it won’t work.

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At the temple, Prapakaran, the software engineer, walked 11 circles around the inner sanctum, part of the ritual for currying favor with the Visa God.

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Not long ago, Dr. Bourla was currying favor with the Democratic powers that be.

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