Curry Favor

Originally from a French poem Roman de Fauvel, written in the early 1300s; Fauvel was a conniving stallion, and the play was a satire on the corruption of social life. The name Fauvel points to the French fauve ('chestnut, reddish-yellow, or fawn'), another sense of fauve meaning the class of wild animals whose coats are at least partly brown, and the medieval belief that a fallow horse was a symbol of deceit and dishonesty. The phrase curry Fauvel, then, referred to currying (or combing) the horse, and was turned by later speakers into curry favor.

Paraphernalia

A loan from Ancient Greek παράφερνα (parápherna, “goods which a wife brings over and above her dowry”), a compound of παρά (pará, “beside”) +‎ φερνή (phernḗ, “dowry”), i.e. “things additional to a dowry”. In the propertied classes, a dowry was placed under the control of the husband, while the 'paraphernalia' which she brought with her remained the wife’s property.