hail-fellow-well-met


adjective
  1. genial and familiar, esp in an offensive or ingratiating way: a hail-fellow-well-met slap on the back

Words Nearby hail-fellow-well-met

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

How to use hail-fellow-well-met in a sentence

  • It could not be that Gordon, could it, with his hail-fellow-well-met manner?

    The Heir of Redclyffe | Charlotte M. Yonge
  • And at first he sings small, and is hail-fellow-well-met with Sheamus—that's James of the Glens, my chieftain's agent.

    Kidnapped | Robert Louis Stevenson
  • Cf. the use of the phrase "to be hail-fellow-well-met with anyone."

    Narcissus | Unknown
  • Mr. Clavering is fastidious, and will not feel honored by the attentions of one who is hail-fellow-well-met with everybody.

    The Leavenworth Case | Anna Katherine Green
  • She is from Cagliari—and can't do much with the cabbage soup: and tells the waiter so, in her deep, hail-fellow-well-met voice.

    Sea and Sardinia | D. H. Lawrence

Cultural definitions for hail-fellow-well-met

hail-fellow-well-met

A term describing a person who is superficially friendly and is always trying to gain friends. Such a person may also be referred to as a “glad-hander.”

The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.