Sauce
'Curry' is a general word for a lot of different kinds of spicy dishes. It probably comes from a Tamil word, 'kari'. Tamil is a language in southern India. Kari means 'sauce' in Tamil. Think of curry as a sauce that tastes different everywhere it is made. An Indian curry, for example, is very different from a Thai curry. Indian curries are made from powder. The powder is a combination of different spices. Thai curries are often called 'wet curries'. They are made by grinding ingredients into a paste.
A world cuisine
Today the curry belongs to everyone. The Japanese eat karei raisu - 'curry rice'. The Chinese eat gali ji - curry chicken. In Thailand and Malaysia, people eat curries made with coconut milk. It is a dish that can find a home anywhere.
Many influences
A lot of famous 'curry' dishes are recent inventions. A popular dish in Britain, for example, is chicken tikka masala. Chicken tikka is a north Indian dish. It is chicken soaked in yoghurt and spices and roasted on a stick. Masala is a sauce from southern India. In Britain, they combined the two because British people like gravy. Vindaloo was a Portuguese dish once. The Portuguese had a colony in Goa in the south of India. The dish gradually became a kind of curry.