weather the storm
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
To endure and survive a difficult situation
Literally: to withstand bad weather
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
In only one area did the coalition succeed totally, but this argument was a double - edged sword: Lloyd George had weathered the storm of labour unrest, and after " Black Friday " this was clearly abating.
So, with luck, they hoped to weather the storm.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “weather the storm” mean?
To endure and survive a difficult situation Literally: to withstand bad weather
Is “weather the storm” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.