curry favor
verb
Simple meaning
Seek favor by fawning or flattery.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
kuhreefayverSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈkʌɹifeɪvɚ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
verb
Seek favor by fawning or flattery
idiomatic
To seek to gain favor by flattery or attention.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
This meaning: Seek favor by fawning or flattery
Used this way, curry favor is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.