fair-weather friend

Definition

One who is friendly, helpful, or available only when it is advantageous or convenient to be so.

Etymology

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

Example Sentences

• "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."
• "Ere long a portion of the village spire began to appear among the trees, and the gilded telltale on its top, in which the slippery politician, and the fair weather friend, and the doubting disciple, who is blown about by every wind of doctrine, may behold a happy emblem of life and practice."