Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Lacking physical strength, energy, or vigor; feeble.
  • adjective Likely to fail under pressure, stress, or strain; lacking resistance.
  • adjective Lacking firmness of character or strength of will.
  • adjective Lacking intensity or strength; faint.
  • adjective Lacking the proper strength or amount of ingredients.
  • adjective Having low prices or few transactions.
  • adjective Lacking the ability to function normally or fully.
  • adjective Unable to digest food easily; readily nauseated.
  • adjective Lacking or resulting from a lack of intelligence.
  • adjective Lacking aptitude or skill.
  • adjective Lacking persuasiveness; unconvincing.
  • adjective Lacking authority or the power to govern.
  • adjective Of, relating to, or being those verbs in Germanic languages that form a past tense and past participle by means of a dental suffix, as start, started; have, had; bring, brought.
  • adjective Of, relating to, or being the inflection of nouns or adjectives in Germanic languages with a declensional suffix that historically contained an n.
  • adjective Unstressed or unaccented in pronunciation or poetic meter. Used of a word or syllable.
  • adjective Designating a verse ending in which the metrical stress falls on a word or syllable that is unstressed in normal speech, such as a preposition.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To make weak; weaken.
  • To soften.
  • To become weak.
  • Bending under pressure, weight, or force; pliant, or pliable; yielding; lacking stiffness or firmness: as, the weak stem of a plant.
  • Lacking strength; not strong.
  • Deficient in bodily strength, vigor, or robustness; feeble, either constitutionally or from age, disease, etc.; infirm; of the organs of the body, deficient in functional energy, activity, or the like: as, a weak stomach; weak eyes.
  • Lacking moral strength or firmness; liable to waver or succumb when urged or tempted; deficient in steady principle or in force of character.
  • Lacking mental power, ability, or balance; simple; silly; foolish.
  • Unequal to a particular need or emergency; ineffectual or inefficacious; inadequate or unsatisfactory; incapable; impotent.
  • Incapable of support; not to be sustained or maintained: unsupported by truth, reason, or justice: as, a weak claim, assertion, argument, etc.
  • Deficient in force of utterance or sound; having little volume, loudness, or sonorousness; low; feeble; small.
  • Not abundantly or sufficiently impregnated with the essential, required, or usual ingredients, or with stimulating or nourishing substances or properties; not of the usual strength: as, weak tea; weak broth; a weak infusion; weak punch.
  • Deficient in pith, pregnancy, or point; lacking in vigor of expression: as, a weak sentence; a weak style.
  • Resulting from or indicating lack of judgment, discernment, or firmness; arising from want of moral courage, of self-denial, or of determination; injudicious: as, a weak compliance; a weak surrender.
  • Slight; inconsiderable; trifling.
  • (I) In grammar, infiected— as a verb, by regular syllabic addition instead of by change of the radical vowel;
  • as a noun or an adjective, with less full or original differences of case-and number-forms: opposed to strong (which see).
  • Poorly supplied; deficient: as, a hand weak in trumps.
  • Tending downward in price: as, a weak market; corn was weak.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • verb rare To make or become weak; to weaken.
  • adjective Wanting physical strength.
  • adjective Deficient in strength of body; feeble; infirm; sickly; debilitated; enfeebled; exhausted.
  • adjective Not able to sustain a great weight, pressure, or strain.
  • adjective Not firmly united or adhesive; easily broken or separated into pieces; not compact.
  • adjective Not stiff; pliant; frail; soft.
  • adjective Not able to resist external force or onset; easily subdued or overcome.
  • adjective Lacking force of utterance or sound; not sonorous; low; small; feeble; faint.
  • adjective Not thoroughly or abundantly impregnated with the usual or required ingredients, or with stimulating and nourishing substances; of less than the usual strength.
  • adjective Lacking ability for an appropriate function or office.
  • adjective Not possessing or manifesting intellectual, logical, moral, or political strength, vigor, etc.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English weike, from Old Norse veikr, pliant; see weik- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English weike, from Old Norse veikr "weak," cognate with Old English wīcan "to yield." Proto-Indo-European base *weik- "to bend, wind". Replaced the native Old English wāc. Cf. German weich, Dutch week.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word weak.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.