Word.ws English Dictionary

fairweather friend

fairweather friend is the alternative form 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...

Forms of fairweather friend

pluralfairweather friends

Questions about fairweather friend

What is fairweather friend the alternative form of?
Fairweather friend is the alternative form of fair-weather friend.

Words near fairweather friend in the dictionary

  1. fairway
  2. fairway wood
  3. fairway woods
  4. fairways
  5. fairweather
  6. fairweather friend
  7. fairweather friends
  8. Fairweathers
  9. Fairwood
  10. fairy
  11. fairy 'nuff

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: fairweather friend (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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