noun, verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   A weather vane, sometimes in the form of a cockerel.
2. 2
   weathervane with a vane in the form of a rooster wordnet
3. 3
   One who veers with every change of current opinion; a fickle, inconstant person. figuratively
4. 4
   A kind of wind pump whose top behaves like a weather vane, moving with the wind direction, but which also has a wheel attached to measure wind speed. Canada, US

Verb

1. 1
   To turn upwind because of the difference in water pressure on two sides. intransitive
2. 2
   To veer into the direction of the oncoming (relative) wind. intransitive
3. 3
   To act as a weathercock for. transitive

Synonyms

All synonyms

anemographanemometeranemometrographanemoscopeapril showersbarometer

Etymology

From Middle English wetharcoke, weþercok, wedercoc, wederkok, equivalent to weather + cock.

Related phrases

weather vane

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.