Meaning & use
fickle
Last updated
Meanings
adjectivecomparabledisapproving
Likely to change your loyalties, opinions or affections suddenly and for little reason, so that you cannot be relied on.
Grammar: Used before a noun or after a verb: a fickle friend, but the crowd was fickle.
Patterns
- fickle about something
- a fickle someone
Fans can be fickle, cheering a player one week and booing him the next.
She had a fickle nature and dropped every hobby within a month.
Voters are fickle, so a popular leader can lose support overnight.
adjectivecomparablefigurative
Of weather, luck or conditions, changing unpredictably from one moment to the next.
Grammar: Often describes nature or chance: fickle weather, fickle fortune.
Patterns
- fickle weather
- the fickle finger of fate
The fickle spring weather ruined our picnic with a sudden storm.
Fishermen know how fickle the sea can be.
Success in the music business is fickle and hard to predict.
Word forms
| comparative | more fickle |
|---|---|
| superlative | most fickle |
Common combinations
- fickle friend
- He turned out to be a fickle friend who disappeared when I needed help.
- fickle weather
- The fickle weather in the mountains means you should always pack a raincoat.
- fickle fortune
- Fickle fortune made him a millionaire and then a bankrupt within five years.
- fickle public
- Politicians know how fickle the public can be.
- fickle heart
- She sang about a fickle heart that could never settle on one love.
Synonyms and how they differ
- capricious
- Capricious is more formal and suggests sudden whims, whereas fickle stresses a lack of loyalty or steadiness.
- inconstant
- Inconstant is a literary, gentler word for not staying faithful, while fickle sounds more critical.
- changeable
- Changeable is neutral and can describe weather or moods without blaming anyone, unlike fickle, which usually judges a person.
- unreliable
- Unreliable simply says you cannot depend on someone, but fickle points to constantly shifting feelings as the reason.
Opposites
Word family
- fickleness noun
- the quality of changing one's mind or loyalty easily
- fickle-minded adjective
- inclined to change one's mind often
Commonly confused: fickle or flighty? fickle or fiddle?
fickle vs flighty
Flighty describes someone who is silly or restless and cannot concentrate; fickle is about changing loyalty or opinion.
fickle vs fiddle
Fiddle is a violin or the act of fidgeting; it has nothing to do with changing one's mind.
Practice
Which description fits a fickle supporter of a sports team?
Choose one answer.
Fickle means changing loyalty without good reason. Loyal, absent or generous supporters are not fickle.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “fickle”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.