Word.ws English Dictionary

well-wishers

well-wishers is the plural of well-wisher.

Meaning of well-wisher

Noun (1)

well-wisher (plural well-wishers)

  1. Someone who extends good wishes, or expresses sympathy, to someone else.
    • [T]hose honest gentlemen that are always exposed to the wit and raillery of their well-wishers and companions; that are pelted by men, women, and children, friends and foes, and in a word, stand as butts in conversation, for every one to shoot at that pleases.1711 May 5 (Gregorian calendar), [Richard Steele], “TUESDAY, April 25, 1711”, in The Spectator, number 48; republished in Alexander Chalmers, editor, The Spectator; a New Edition, […], volume I, New...
  2. (obsolete, rare) Followed by to: someone who has an ambition to be or become something.
    • I never saw your chancellor, nor his chaplain. The latter has a good deal of learning, and is a well wisher to be an author: your chancellor is an excellent man.1711 March 17 (date written; Gregorian calendar), Jonathan Swift, “[Dr. Swift’s Journal to Stella.] Letter XVII.”, in Thomas Sheridan, John Nichols, editors, The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift...

Noun (2)

well-wisher (plural well-wishers)

  1. (nonce-word, rare) Someone who makes a wish at a wishing well.
    • They strolled on and passed a smiling man standing by the Village wishing well. "Well," said the well-wisher. Ah … must be the Village idiot.2008, Alan Pinkett, chapter 12, in Utta Drivel Too, [S.l.]: [Lulu.com], published 2015, →ISBN, page 45

Questions about well-wishers

What is well-wishers the plural of?
Well-wishers is the plural of well-wisher.

Words near well-wishers in the dictionary

  1. well-willers
  2. well-willing
  3. well-wish
  4. well-wished
  5. well-wisher
  6. well-wishers
  7. well-wishes
  8. well-wishing
  9. well-wishings
  10. well-wooded
  11. well-worn

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: well-wishers (page history and authors); well-wisher (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:

Cite this entry: “well-wishers.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/well-wishers. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.