WEATHERCOCK

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does weathercock mean? 

• WEATHERCOCK (noun)
  The noun WEATHERCOCK has 1 sense:

1. weathervane with a vane in the form of a rooster

  Familiarity information: WEATHERCOCK used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• WEATHERCOCK (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Weathervane with a vane in the form of a rooster

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Hypernyms ("weathercock" is a kind of...):

vane; weather vane; weathervane; wind vane (mechanical device attached to an elevated structure; rotates freely to show the direction of the wind)

 Context examples 

I'm afraid Laurie is hardly grown-up enough for Meg, and altogether too much of a weathercock just now for anyone to depend on.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

I picture myself coming downstairs in the morning, and looking through a long ghastly gash of a staircase window at the school-bell hanging on the top of an out-house with a weathercock above it; and dreading the time when it shall ring J.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

There was an astronomer, who had undertaken to place a sun-dial upon the great weathercock on the town-house, by adjusting the annual and diurnal motions of the earth and sun, so as to answer and coincide with all accidental turnings of the wind.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Now Mr. Laurence is looking up at the sky and the weathercock.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Then came the hours of suspense, during which she vibrated from parlor to porch, while public opinion varied like the weathercock.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Jo thought intently for a minute with her eyes fixed on the picture, then she smoothed out her wrinkled forehead and said, with a decided nod at the face opposite, No thank you, sir, you're very charming, but you've no more stability than a weathercock.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)