Word.ws English Dictionary

fair-weather friends

fair-weather friends is the plural of fair-weather friend.

Meaning of fair-weather friend

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...

Questions about fair-weather friends

What is fair-weather friends the plural of?
Fair-weather friends is the plural of fair-weather friend.

Words near fair-weather friends in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: fair-weather friends (page history and authors); 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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