favour
Pluralfavours
Verbfavours, favouring, favoured
US spellingfavor
Pluralfavours
Formsfavours, favouring, favoured
- 1A helpful act done willingly for someone as a kindness.
Can I ask a favour? I need a lift to the station on Friday.
He called in a few favours to get the band a slot at the festival.
UsageYou do someone a favour (not
incorrect: make a favour) and ask someone a favour. American English writes favor. - 2To look on someone with special fondness, or to prefer one thing over others.
Many cyclists favour lighter frames for long rides in the hills.
He wore the sort of waxed jacket favoured by farmers and dog walkers.
UsageOften favoured by a group: the jacket favoured by farmers. You can also favour one person over another.
- 3The backing or approval that a proposal, an idea or one side in a contest or dispute receives.
Most of the councillors spoke in favour of the new cycle lanes.
The four-day working week is steadily gaining favour among British employers.
UsageUsually in favour of a plan: you support it. Something in your favour helps you instead.
Similarsupport, approval, backing, popularity
Oppositeopposition
- 4Advantage or benefit to someone, as when a score, a rule or the weather is on their side.
The strong pound worked in our favour, so the whole holiday cost far less than we expected.
With the wind in their favour, the crew reached the harbour well before dark.
UsageUsually in someone's favour: the score was in our favour, or something works in your favour.
Oppositedisadvantage
- 5Kindly approval or goodwill shown towards someone.
The courtier spent years trying to win the king's favour.
Her warm, direct manner at once disposed the whole committee in her favour.
UsageOften win someone's favour, or fall out of favour with people.
Oppositedisapproval
- 6To encourage something or help to bring it about.
Calm, cloudy nights favour the formation of fog in the valleys.
The new rules favoured a faster, more open style of play.
- 7A small gift handed out to guests, for example at a party or a wedding.
The couple gave sugared almonds as favours to their wedding guests.
Each place at the long table had a small favour tied with ribbon.
UsageMost often wedding favours or party favours.
- 8To do someone the kindness of giving or granting them something, such as an answer, a visit or a song, as an act of generosity rather than a feeling of preference.
Perhaps the minister will favour the committee with a straight answer this time.
She favoured the class with a short talk about her years in Kenya.
UsageUsually favour someone with something. It can sound ironic: will he favour us with a straight answer?
- 9
Less common meanings
- 10The person or thing that is looked on with special regard and preferred above others.
All these his wondrous works, but chiefly man, / His chief delight and favour.
1667, John Milton, Paradise Lost - 11To use one thing more often or more heavily than another, such as a sound leg in place of an injured one.
Runners who favour one leg after an injury can end up with back pain.
After twisting her right ankle, she favoured her left leg all the way home.
- 12Partiality towards one party in a legal matter, so that it is not judged fairly.
The appeal court found no sign of favour in the way the magistrate ran the trial.
Officials of the court must act without fear or favour towards either side.
UsageMostly in the pairing without fear or favour: neither threats nor sympathies sway the decision.
- 13A ribbon, rosette or other small token worn as a badge, for example to celebrate an occasion or show support, or in the past by a knight as a sign of a lady's affection.
The coachmen wore white favours on their jackets for the duke's wedding.
Since the good news young folk—and old, too, for that matter—bedeck themselves with favors. Charms hand pendent from the watch chain, from neck pins.
1900, “From Abroad”, in The InternationalNote
Knots and bunches of ribbon of this kind were once worn by wedding guests, postilions and dancers alike, and white was the colour for a marriage. The custom has largely faded, though morris dancers still wear ribbon favours as part of their kit, and the word now lives on mainly as the small gift for guests.
- 14A courteous term for a letter or other written message received from someone.
Your favour of last Tuesday arrived just as I was leaving for London.
I will now take some notice of your last favour; but being so far behind-hand with you, must be brief.
1748, [Samuel Richardson], ClarissaNote
A courteous way of naming a letter you have received, usually with your: your last favour, your kind favour. It runs from the polite letters of Richardson's day, when a letter was treated as a kindness done to the reader, to the business letters of the nineteenth century, and it now sounds archaic outside deliberate imitation of that style.
Checked 4 Nov 2026 · 4 facts
- Favour historically meant a letter or written communication. en.wiktionary.org
- The expression 'your kind favour' was used for a received letter. walterscott.lib.ed.ac.uk
- The expression 'your last favour' occurs in Richardson's period, with correspondence represented as a kindness creating an obligation. upload.wikimedia.org
- Favour meaning a received letter was used in nineteenth-century business correspondence. gutenberg.org
- 15To be similar to someone or something, and in particular to look like another person.
Those two cousins favour each other so much that strangers take them for sisters.
She favours her mam round the eyes, but she's got her dad's chin.
Note
A dialect use, heard in the north of England as well as in the American South and in Cajun speech, and most at home in talk about families: a child favours a parent, or two cousins favour each other. It can stretch to things too, so one flower's scent may favour another's. The person resembled follows directly, with no preposition.
- 16A likeness between one person or thing and another.
Note
An old regional use, chiefly from the north of England, that names the likeness itself rather than the act of looking alike: a lad has a strong favour of his grandfather. It sits beside the verb for resembling, where a child favours a parent.
Checked 4 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- The noun has an archaic sense meaning resemblance or likeness, chiefly associated with northern England. en.wiktionary.org
- The verb favour can mean to resemble another person. en.wiktionary.org
- 17A person's face, expression or general appearance.
This boy is fair, of female favour.
c. 1598, William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”Note
Shakespeare, in As You Like It, can call a boy fair, of female favour, meaning he has a girl's looks. The meaning is obsolete, so a reader who meets it in older writing should take it as face or looks, not kindness; well-favoured and ill-favoured keep the old sense alive as words for handsome and ugly.
Checked 4 Nov 2026 · 5 facts
- William Shakespeare wrote As You Like It. en.wikipedia.org
- The play contains the wording fair, of female favour; Oliver speaks the words while repeating a description. shakespeare.mit.edu
- Favour here means appearance or looks, an obsolete noun sense. en.wiktionary.org
- Well-favoured means handsome, preserving the appearance sense. en.wiktionary.org
- Ill-favoured means ugly, preserving the appearance sense. en.wiktionary.org
- 18Leniency towards an offender, shown by softening or reducing a punishment.
I could not discover the lenity and favour of this sentence.
1726, [Jonathan Swift], Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. [Gulliver’s Travels]
Showing meanings only.
Practice
Can you tell the meanings of favour apart? Answer 3 quick questions from this page, or write your own sentence and AI will check it.
Origin
Middle English had both favour and favor, borrowed through Anglo-Norman favour and Old French favor from Latin favor ("good will; kindness; partiality"), derived from faveō ("to be kind to"), whose earlier origin is uncertain. The older spelling favor later became standard in American English, helped by Noah Webster's preference for -or spellings. The same Romance source gave Danish favør and Irish fabhar.