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hail-fellow-well-met

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

Examples from the Web for hail-fellow-well-met

Historical Examples

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

    The Heir of Redclyffe

    Charlotte M. Yonge

  • Cf. the use of the phrase "to be hail-fellow-well-met with anyone."

    Narcissus

    Unknown

  • To be ‘hail-fellow-well-met’ with him, were to lower ourselves.

  • She was hail-fellow-well-met with all her schoolmates, and never paired off with any particular girl.

    The Girls of Central High on Track and Field

    David Goodger (goodger@python.org)

  • The garrulous or impertinent talker is almost as objectionable as the hail-fellow-well-met, slap-on-the-back fellow.

hail-fellow-well-met in Culture

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.”

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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.