fair-weather friends
Preserved but no longer current.
Meaning · English
Those that stick to you so long as all is going well, but desert you as soon as storms gather round your head and you look as though you might "go under.
Era: ca. 1898 (Victorian)
Sources & notes
Reproduced from Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898 edition, public domain; archive.org, retrieved 2026-07-31; OCR text, minor errors possible). Reflects the scholarship and attitudes of its era.
Common questions
What does “fair-weather friends” mean?
Those that stick to you so long as all is going well, but desert you as soon as storms gather round your head and you look as though you might "go under.
Is “fair-weather friends” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.