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

See Examples For:

curry favor

They may even want to emulate the boss to curry favor.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 5, 2026

And what are the incentives for Republican lawmakers to curry favor with these figures?

From Slate ● May 7, 2026

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

From Barron's ● Feb. 27, 2026

On the international stage, Starmer managed to curry favor both with President Trump and European leaders, a major feat of diplomacy.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 9, 2026

Some of the highest-ranking, she saw, carried little manikins like Iofur’s rag-doll daemon, trying to curry favor, perhaps, by imitating the fashion he’d begun.

From "The Golden Compass" by Philip Pullman