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fair-weather friend

noun
/ˈfɛəˌwɛðə ˈfɹɛnd/UK/ˈfɛɚˌwɛðɚ ˈfɹɛnd/US

Etymology

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

  1. derived from *preyH-✻ — “to please; to love”
  2. inherited from *frijōndz✻ — “friend, loved one”
  3. inherited from *friund✻
  4. inherited from frēond
  5. inherited from freend
  6. compounded as fair-weather friend — “fair-weather + friend”

Definitions

  1. One who is friendly, helpful, or available only when it is advantageous or convenient to…

    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.
    • [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.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for fair-weather friend. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA