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curry2

Pronunciation: /ˈkʌri/
Translate curry | into French | into German | into Italian | into Spanish
Definition of curry

verb (curries, currying, curried)

[with object]
  • 1chiefly North American groom (a horse) with a curry comb: I was brushing and currying the horse
  • 2 historical treat (tanned leather) to improve its properties: I made the deer’s hide be curried and dressed by a tanner
  • 3 archaic thrash; beat: he swore he would curry his hide

Phrases

curry favour

ingratiate oneself with someone through obsequious behaviour:a wimpish attempt to curry favour with the new bosses
[alteration of Middle English curry favel, from the name (Favel or Fauvel) of a chestnut horse in a 14th-century French romance who became a symbol of cunning and duplicity; hence ‘to curry (or groom) Favel’ meant to use the cunning which he personified]

Origin:

Middle English: from Old French correier, ultimately of Germanic origin

curry in other Oxford dictionaries

Definition of curry in the US English dictionary

Nearby words

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