I. cur ‧ ry 1 /ˈkʌri $ ˈkɜːri/ BrE AmE noun ( plural curries ) [uncountable and countable]
[ Date: 1500-1600 ; Language: Tamil ; Origin: kari ]
a type of food from India, consisting of meat or vegetables in a spicy sauce:
chicken curry
• • •
COLLOCATIONS
■ ADJECTIVES/NOUN + curry
▪ hot (=with a strong, burning taste that comes from strong spices)
I love really hot curry.
▪ medium (=quite hot)
She ordered a medium curry.
▪ mild (=not hot)
Children often enjoy mild curry.
▪ chicken/beef/vegetable etc curry
I think I’ll have a chicken curry.
▪ an Indian/Thai etc curry (=made from Indian, Thai etc recipes)
■ curry + NOUN
▪ curry powder (=a mixture of spices for making curry)
▪ curry sauce (=a sauce for making curry, often in a jar)
▪ a curry house British English (=a restaurant that serves curry)
Let’s try that new curry house in town.
■ verbs
▪ have curry
For dinner we had curry and rice.
▪ go for a curry (=go to a restaurant to eat a curry)
How about going for a curry on Saturday night?
II. curry 2 BrE AmE verb ( past tense and past participle curried , present participle currying , third person singular curries )
[ Date: 1200-1300 ; Language: Old French ; Origin: correer 'to prepare, curry' , from Vulgar Latin conredare ; ]
[ Origin: favor from favel 'brown horse (as a sign of dishonesty)' (14-16 centuries) , from Old French fauvel ]
curry favour (with somebody) to try to make someone like you or notice you in order to get something that you want – used to show disapproval:
a businessman who made several attempts to curry favour with politicians