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.”

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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.

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Example Sentences

It outraged him that the people who got credit for higher understanding were those who spent the most time currying favor with the media.

From Literature

That could curry favor with the 46% of consumers in the U.S.,

From The Wall Street Journal

He curried favor in Abu Dhabi by backing a local tech incubator and building personal ties to the royals via a circle of well-connected friends on the city’s luxurious Saadiyat island.

From The Wall Street Journal

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

From The Wall Street Journal

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.

From The Wall Street Journal