curry favor

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Originally from a French poem Roman de Fauvel, written in the early 1300s; Fauvel was a conniving stallion, and the play was a satire on the corruption of social life. The name Fauvel points to the French fauve (“chestnut, reddish-yellow, or fawn”), another sense of fauve meaning the class of wild animals whose coats are at least partly brown, and the medieval belief that a fallow horse was a symbol of deceit and dishonesty. The phrase curry Fauvel, then, referred to currying (“combing”) the horse, and was altered (as folk etymology) by later speakers to curry favor.

23 source translations are retained for this English entry.

• Burmese: ဖော်လံဖား (hpaulamhpa:) — to seek to gain favor by flattery
• Burmese: ဖား (hpa:) — to seek to gain favor by flattery
• Burmese: ဘောမ (bhau:ma.) — to seek to gain favor by flattery
• Chinese Mandarin: 巴結 /巴结 (bājie) — to seek to gain favor by flattery
• Dutch: een wit voetje halen — to seek to gain favor by flattery
• Dutch: slijmen — to seek to gain favor by flattery
• Finnish: mielistellä — to seek to gain favor by flattery
• French: flatter — to seek to gain favor by flattery
• French: cirer les bottes — to seek to gain favor by flattery
• German: sich einschmeicheln — to seek to gain favor by flattery
• German: sich anbiedern — to seek to gain favor by flattery
• German: sich einschleimen — to seek to gain favor by flattery
• Japanese: 機嫌を取る (kigen o toru) — to seek to gain favor by flattery
• Japanese: 胡麻をする (goma o suru) — to seek to gain favor by flattery
• Māori: whakaporepore — to seek to gain favor by flattery
• Russian: заи́скивать (zaískivatʹ) — to seek to gain favor by flattery
• Russian: подли́зываться (podlízyvatʹsja) — to seek to gain favor by flattery
• Turkish: yaltaklanmak — to seek to gain favor by flattery
• Vietnamese: lấy lòng — to seek to gain favor by flattery
• Vietnamese: xu nịnh — to seek to gain favor by flattery
• Vietnamese: nịnh — to seek to gain favor by flattery
• Vietnamese: nịnh nọt — to seek to gain favor by flattery
• Vietnamese: nịnh hót — to seek to gain favor by flattery