Word.ws English Dictionary

fair-weather fan

fair-weather fan noun: a fan who only pays attention to their favorite team when they are performing well.

Noun

fair-weather fan (plural fair-weather fans)

  1. (idiomatic) A fan who only pays attention to their favorite team when they are performing well.
    • But, hey, don't get me wrong. I'm not one of those big-mouth, fair-weather fans who sings "Hail to the Redskins" when they're winning and "To Hell With the Redskins" when they're not.2001 October 19, Don Oldenburg, “We’ll Always Have Riggins: Tips for the Suffering Redskins Fan”, in The Washington Post, Washington, D.C.: The Washington Post Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from...
    • We certainly have our share of loyal fans, but an even greater share of fair-weather fans. We’re a busy city, and this may be part of the reason for the apathy. But Boston and New York are pretty busy, too, and while I’m sure they have their fair-weather fans, they also have some of the oldest and...2011 January 14, Paul Johnson, “Falcons Have an Identity. It’s Called Winning.”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 01 Jul...

Examples of fair-weather fan in a sentence

  • We certainly have our share of loyal fans, but an even greater share of fair-weather fans.2011 January 14, Paul Johnson, “Falcons Have an Identity. It’s Called Winning.”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times...
  • But this is counterbalanced by the fact that fair-weather fans provide a necessary reserve of energy precisely when it’s needed most.2015 October 16, David Sax, “Confessions of a Bandwagon Fan”, in The New Yorker, New York, N.Y.: Condé Nast Publications, →ISSN, →OCLC...

Forms of fair-weather fan

pluralfair-weather fans
alternative formfair weather fan

Origin of fair-weather fan

From fair-weather + fan, drawing an analogy between good weather and trouble-free times.

Questions about fair-weather fan

What does fair-weather fan mean?
Fair-weather fan means a fan who only pays attention to their favorite team when they are performing well.
How do you use fair-weather fan in a sentence?
We certainly have our share of loyal fans, but an even greater share of fair-weather fans.
What part of speech is fair-weather fan?
Fair-weather fan is a noun.
What is the plural of fair-weather fan?
The plural of fair-weather fan is fair-weather fans.

Words near fair-weather fan in the dictionary

  1. fair-skinned
  2. fair-spoken
  3. fair-to-middlin'
  4. fair-to-middling
  5. fair-weather
  6. fair-weather fan
  7. fair-weather fans
  8. fair-weather friend
  9. fair-weather friends
  10. fair-weather friendship
  11. fair-weather friendships

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: fair-weather fan (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-fair weather fan.ogg.

Cite this entry: “fair-weather fan.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/fair-weather_fan. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.