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

Mr. Brewer has since admitted that these lies were meant to curry favor with law enforcement, Mr. Talbert said.

From New York Times

The initiative's legal clinic has curried favor with the Supreme Court since its founding in 2020 and filed at least nine "friend-of-the-court" amicus briefs in religious liberty cases before the Court.

From Salon

General Hamdan, whose forces are mainly recruited from Arab tribes, also began enlisting soldiers from African tribes in a bid to curry favor with them and bolster his power in the region.

From New York Times

Legend has it that Louis XIV loved the orange blossom, as featured in the garden, so much that his courtiers doused themselves in it to curry favor, at one point causing the king to faint.

From Seattle Times

He never divested from his businesses after he was elected president and people currying favor with him spent many millions at his various properties, including the golf resorts.

From Salon