Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A weathervane, especially one in the form of a rooster.
  • noun One that is very changeable or fickle.
  • intransitive verb To have a tendency to veer in the direction of the wind. Used of an aircraft or a missile.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To serve as a weathercock to or on.
  • noun A vane or weather-vane; a pointing device, set on the top of a spire or other elevation, and turning with the wind, thus showing its direction. See cut under vane.
  • noun Figuratively, any thing or person that is easily and frequently turned or swayed; a fickle or inconstant person.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To supply with a weathercock; to serve as a weathercock for.
  • noun A vane, or weather vane; -- so called because originally often in the figure of a cock, turning on the top of a spire with the wind, and showing its direction.
  • noun Hence, any thing or person that turns easily and frequently; one who veers with every change of current opinion; a fickle, inconstant person.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun US A weather vane in the shape of a cockerel.
  • verb intransitive, of a boat To turn upwind because of the difference in water pressure on two sides.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun weathervane with a vane in the form of a rooster

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Not sure what a weathercock is but maybe it points in the direction of events that make the neocons horny? paul bass

    There Are Some Lines You Just Don’t Cross « Antiwar.com Blog 2009

  • A bad look out, Tomkins, said he, if that rascally old weathercock is to be trusted, the wind's got into the wrong quarter again, and we shall have more rain.

    Parables From Nature 1857

  • But then that's what happens when you have a weathercock for a leader.

    Archive 2009-05-01 2009

  • As I said, he is an interesting semeion, or should one have put it more simply as weathercock instead? abraham

    There Are Some Lines You Just Don’t Cross « Antiwar.com Blog 2009

  • But then that's what happens when you have a weathercock for a leader.

    Wales' weathercocks 2009

  • “Your loyalty is about as fixed as a weathercock.”

    CONSPIRATA ROBERT HARRIS 2010

  • High on the roof, an iron weathercock swayed east in the breeze.

    Let The Dead Lie Malla Nunn 2010

  • High on the roof, an iron weathercock swayed east in the breeze.

    Let The Dead Lie Malla Nunn 2010

  • Woodcocks fly fast and direct on migration; so fast “that a pane of plate-glass of an inch thick has been smashed by the contact, and one was actually impaled on the weathercock of one of the churches in Ipswich.”

    A Year on the Wing TIM DEE 2009

  • Mr Fish is a weathercock of a classical kind, he has moved from vague left to fiercer right with age.

    Profession 2009: Fishing 2009

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