weathercock

English

Etymology

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

Pronunciation

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

Noun

weathercock (plural weathercocks)

1. A weather vane, sometimes in the form of a cockerel.
2. (figuratively) One who veers with every change of current opinion; a fickle, inconstant person.
3. (chiefly Canada, US) 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.

Translations

weather vane

• Bulgarian: ветропоказател m (vetropokazatel)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 風標／风标 (zh) (fēngbiāo)

• Danish: vejrhane c
• Dutch: windhaan (nl) m, weerhaan (nl) m
• Esperanto: ventoflago
• Finnish: tuuliviiri (fi) (general); tuulikukko (cockerel-formed)
• French: girouette (fr) f
• German: Wetterfahne (de) f
• Greek: ανεμοδείκτης (el) m (anemodeíktis)
• Hungarian: szélkakas (hu)
• Irish: coileach gaoithe m
• Italian: galletto segnavento m
• Japanese: 風見鶏 (ja) (kazamidori)
• Macedonian: ве́троказ m (vétrokaz)
• Norman: vithouette f (Jersey)
• Norwegian:

  Nynorsk: vêrhane m

• Polish: kurek (pl) m
• Portuguese: cata-vento (pt) m
• Russian: флю́гер (ru) m (fljúger)
• Spanish: veleta (es) f
• Swedish: väderhane (sv) c, vindflöjel (sv) c
• Tagalog: pabiling, girimpula, banoglawin

a fickle, inconstant person

• Danish: vendekåbe c, vejrhane c
• Finnish: tuuliviiri (fi)
• Hungarian: szélkakas (hu)
• Italian: banderuola (it) f
• Norwegian:

  Nynorsk: vêrhane m

• Portuguese: biruta de aeroporto f (informal)
• Spanish: veleta (es)

See also

• weathervane, weather vane
• windsock, wind sock

Verb

weathercock (third-person singular simple present weathercocks, present participle weathercocking, simple past and past participle weathercocked)

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