Word.ws English Dictionary

fair-weather friend

Syllables: fair-wea·ther friendUK/ˈfɛəˌwɛðə ˈfɹɛnd//ˈfɛɚˌwɛðɚ ˈfɹɛnd/

fair-weather friend noun: one who is friendly, helpful, or available only when it is advantageous or convenient to be so.

Noun

fair-weather friend (plural fair-weather friends)

  1. (idiomatic) One who is friendly, helpful, or available only when it is advantageous or convenient to be so.
    • My Fair-weather Friends of the Summer are going away for London, and I ſhall ſee them and the butterflies together, if I live till next Year; which I would not deſire to do, if it were only for their ſakes.1730 October 1, [Alexander] Pope, “Letters of Mr. Pope to Mr. Gay. From 1712. to 1730.”, in Letters of Mr. Pope, and Several Eminent Persons. From the Year 1705. to 1735. N.B. This Edition Contains...
    • [T]he liberty of the press was not to be looked upon as fit only for seasons of calmness, as a fair-weather friend to be discarded in a storm.1819 December 23, [Ralph] Bernal, “[House of Commons] Blasphemous Libel Bill”, in T[homas] C[urson] Hansard, editor, The Parliamentary Debates from the Year 1803 to the Present Time: Forming a...

fair-weather friend meaning in Punjabi and Thai

fair-weather friend in Punjabi

one who is friendly, etc., only when it is advantageous or convenient
ਫਸਲੀ ਬਟੇਰਾ phaslī baṭerā

fair-weather friend in Thai

one who is friendly, etc., only when it is advantageous or convenient
เพื่อนกิน pʉ̂ʉan-gin

Forms of fair-weather friend

pluralfair-weather friends
alternative formfair weather friend
alternative formfairweather friend

Origin of fair-weather friend

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

Words formed from fair-weather friend

Questions about fair-weather friend

What does fair-weather friend mean?
Fair-weather friend means one who is friendly, helpful, or available only when it is advantageous or convenient to be so.
What is fair-weather friend in Punjabi?
Fair-weather friend in Punjabi is ਫਸਲੀ ਬਟੇਰਾ (phaslī baṭerā). See Fair-weather friend meaning in Punjabi.
What part of speech is fair-weather friend?
Fair-weather friend is a noun.
How do you pronounce fair-weather friend?
Fair-weather friend is pronounced /ˈfɛəˌwɛðə ˈfɹɛnd/ (UK).
What is the plural of fair-weather friend?
The plural of fair-weather friend is fair-weather friends.

Words near fair-weather friend in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: fair-weather friend (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.

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

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