Currey

Part of speech: noun, verb

Definitions

1. A dish of meat, vegetables, or legumes cooked in a spiced sauce ; to clean and groom a horse's coat with a brush or comb
2. Food prepared with aromatic spices and often a sauce ; to brush and care for a horse's appearance and health
3. A spiced sauce-based meal with various ingredients ; to tend to a horse by brushing and grooming its coat

Etymology: In 1747, the first published English recipe for the Indian dish appeared under the spelling "currey", a form now obsolete. The name comes from Tamil "kaṟi", and it reached English through contact with South India, not through any European cooking tradition. The spelling was then pulled toward an older English word. Middle English "cury" meant "cooking", a word that passed through Old French "cuyre" from Vulgar Latin "cocere" and Latin "coquere". It appears in the 1390 cookbook "Forme of Cury", compiled by the court chefs of Richard II. The foreign dish name and this native word for cooking merged, and the modern spelling "curry" followed.