hail fellow well met

plural hail fellows well met · alternative hail-fellow-well-met

1. A sociable, friendly, usually male person.

   I was a hail fellow well met with all of the workmen at the factory, most of whom knew little and cared less about social distinctions.

   1990, James Weldon Johnson, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, Penguin, →ISBN, page 60

   1 more example

   All his life he had been a jolly hail fellow well met: he had put on a rather becoming paunch, his cheeks were well filled out and red as a beet, his manners were easy and indolent, and he seemed destined to live on into a ripe old age, sound and healthy as a nut.

   1939, Henry Miller, Tropic of Capricorn, Grove Press, published 1962, page 150