curry
B1Neutral to informal. Common in everyday, culinary, and travel contexts.
Definition
Meaning
A dish of meat, vegetables, or legumes cooked in a spiced sauce, typically served with rice, originating from the Indian subcontinent.
1. The spiced sauce or seasoning mixture (curry powder/paste) used in such a dish. 2. (Verb) To prepare or flavour food with such a mixture. 3. (Idiom) 'Curry favour': to seek to gain favour through flattery or obsequious behaviour.
Linguistics
Semantic Notes
Refers broadly to a wide variety of spiced dishes from South Asia and Southeast Asia. In Western contexts, it often denotes a homogenised concept, whereas in India, specific dish names (e.g., rogan josh, korma) are more common. As a verb, outside of cooking, it is almost exclusively used in the idiom 'curry favour'.
Dialectal Variation
British vs American Usage
Differences
UK: Extremely common, integrated into everyday cuisine (e.g., 'a takeaway curry', 'Friday night curry'). Often refers specifically to dishes from the UK's South Asian diaspora (e.g., chicken tikka masala). US: Less ubiquitous as a mainstream meal option; often associated with specialty restaurants or homemade ethnic food.
Connotations
UK: Strongly associated with social dining, takeaway culture, and post-pub meals. Has cultural weight from the British Empire and subsequent immigration. US: More likely to be perceived as an exotic or specifically ethnic cuisine.
Frequency
The word is significantly more frequent in British English than in American English.
Vocabulary
Collocations
Grammar
Valency Patterns
[verb] + curry: eat, have, make, cook, order, prepare, serve[adjective] + curry: hot, mild, spicy, fragrant, leftover, homemadecurry + [noun]: curry dish, curry recipe, curry restaurantVocabulary
Synonyms
Strong
Neutral
Weak
Vocabulary
Antonyms
Phrases
Idioms & Phrases
- “curry favour (with somebody)”
Usage
Context Usage
Business
Rare, except in hospitality/tourism (e.g., 'curry restaurant chain', 'curry spice export').
Academic
Appears in anthropology, history, and cultural studies discussing food, colonialism, or diaspora.
Everyday
Very common in social and domestic contexts related to food and dining.
Technical
In food science (e.g., 'curry powder composition', 'capsaicin levels in curry').
Examples
By Part of Speech
verb
British English
- She decided to curry the lamb with a Madras paste for extra heat.
- He's planning to curry the vegetables for the party.
American English
- The recipe instructs you to curry the chicken before simmering.
- I like to curry tofu for a vegetarian option.
adverb
British English
- This is cooked curry-style.
- The meat was seasoned curry-fashion.
American English
- The dish was prepared curry-style with coconut milk.
- It's a curry-spiced blend.
adjective
British English
- The curry aroma filled the entire house.
- He ordered a curry pie from the chip shop.
American English
- The curry flavor was very authentic.
- They served a curry dip with the samosas.
Examples
By CEFR Level
- I like chicken curry.
- This curry is very hot.
- We're going out for a curry on Friday night.
- Can you buy some curry powder from the shop?
- She makes an excellent vegetarian curry with chickpeas and spinach.
- The history of curry powder is linked to British colonial trade.
- While 'curry' is a catch-all term in the West, it obscures the vast regional diversity of Indian spiced dishes.
- He was accused of trying to curry favour with the management by consistently praising their unpopular decisions.
Learning
Memory Aids
Mnemonic
Imagine a hurried (sounds like 'curried') chef rushing to prepare a spicy, fragrant dish.
Conceptual Metaphor
SPICE/HEAT IS INTENSITY (e.g., 'to curry a political argument' is not standard, but the metaphor exists in 'spice things up').
Watch out
Common Pitfalls
Translation Traps (for Russian speakers)
- Avoid confusing with 'карри' (the spice powder/paste) when referring to the whole dish. In Russian, 'карри' often refers only to the seasoning. For the dish, specify 'блюдо карри' or use a specific name like 'кхурма'.
- The idiom 'curry favour' has no relation to food; a common translation is 'заискивать', 'подлизываться'.
Common Mistakes
- Using 'curry' as a countable noun for the spice powder (e.g., 'Add two curries' – incorrect; 'Add two teaspoons of curry powder' – correct).
- Overgeneralising: Calling every Indian dish a 'curry' is culturally insensitive to some; specific names are preferred.
Practice
Quiz
What is the origin of the idiom 'curry favour'?
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
It comes from the Tamil word 'kaṟi' meaning 'sauce' or 'relish for rice'. It was adopted into English via Portuguese and later British colonial contact.
Curry powder is a dry blend of ground spices. Curry paste is a wet mixture often including spices, herbs, garlic, ginger, and chillies, providing a more intense and complex flavour base for dishes, particularly in Thai cuisine.
In modern English, its non-culinary use is almost entirely restricted to the idiom 'curry favour'. The literal meaning of 'curry' as 'to groom a horse' (from Old French 'correier') is now rare.
Some consider it a broad, reductive colonial-era term that lumps together thousands of distinct regional dishes from across South Asia under one umbrella, erasing their specific cultural and culinary identities.