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Weak

 - 4 dictionary results

weak

  [week]
Use Weak in a Sentence
–adjective, -er, -est.
1. not strong; liable to yield, break, or collapse under pressure or strain; fragile; frail: a weak fortress; a weak spot in armor.
2. lacking in bodily strength or healthy vigor, as from age or sickness; feeble; infirm: a weak old man; weak eyes.
3. not having much political strength, governing power, or authority: a weak nation; a weak ruler.
4. lacking in force, potency, or efficacy; impotent, ineffectual, or inadequate: weak sunlight; a weak wind.
5. lacking in rhetorical or creative force or effectiveness: a weak reply to the charges; one of the author's weakest novels.
6. lacking in logical or legal force or soundness: a weak argument.
7. deficient in mental power, intelligence, or judgment: a weak mind.
8. not having much moral strength or firmness, resolution, or force of character: to prove weak under temptation; weak compliance.
9. deficient in amount, volume, loudness, intensity, etc.; faint; slight: a weak current of electricity; a weak pulse.
10. deficient, lacking, or poor in something specified: a hand weak in trumps; I'm weak in spelling.
11. deficient in the essential or usual properties or ingredients: weak tea.
12. unstressed, as a syllable, vowel, or word.
13. (of Germanic verbs) inflected with suffixes, without inherited change of the root vowel, as English work, worked, or having a preterit ending in a dental, as English bring, brought.
14. (of Germanic nouns and adjectives) inflected with endings originally appropriate to stems terminating in -n, as the adjective alte in German der alte Mann (“the old man”).
15. (of wheat or flour) having a low gluten content or having a poor quality of gluten.
16. Photography. thin; not dense.
17. Commerce. characterized by a decline in prices: The market was weak in the morning but rallied in the afternoon.
Origin:
1250–1300; ME weik < ON veikr; c. OE wāc, D week, G weich; akin to OE wīcan to yield, give way, ON vīkja to move, turn, draw back, G weichen to yield

Synonyms:
1. breakable, delicate. 2. senile, sickly, unwell, invalid. Weak, decrepit, feeble, weakly imply a lack of strength or of good health. Weak means not physically strong, because of extreme youth, old age, illness, etc.: weak after an attack of fever. Decrepit means old and broken in health to a marked degree: decrepit and barely able to walk. Feeble denotes much the same as weak, but connotes being pitiable or inferior: feeble and almost senile. Weakly suggests a long-standing sickly condition, a state of chronic bad health: A weakly child may become a strong adult. 4. ineffective. 6. unsound, ineffective, inadequate, illogical, inconclusive, unsustained, unsatisfactory, lame, vague. 7. unintelligent, simple, foolish, stupid, senseless, silly. 8. vacillating, wavering, unstable, irresolute, fluctuating, undecided, weak-kneed. 9. slender, slim, inconsiderable, flimsy, poor, trifling, trivial. 11. wanting, short, lacking.

Antonyms:
1. strong.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
Cite This Source Link To Weak
weak   (wēk)   
adj.   weak·er, weak·est

  1. Lacking physical strength, energy, or vigor; feeble.

  2. Likely to fail under pressure, stress, or strain; lacking resistance: a weak link in a chain.

  3. Lacking firmness of character or strength of will.

  4. Lacking the proper strength or amount of ingredients: weak coffee.

  5. Lacking the ability to function normally or fully: a weak heart.

  6. Lacking aptitude or skill: a weak student; weak in math.

  7. Lacking or resulting from a lack of intelligence.

  8. Lacking persuasiveness; unconvincing: a weak argument.

  9. Lacking authority or the power to govern.

  10. Lacking potency or intensity: weak sunlight.

  11. Linguistics

    1. 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.

    2. Of, relating to, or being the inflection of nouns or adjectives in Germanic languages with a declensional suffix that historically contained an n.

  12. Unstressed or unaccented in pronunciation or poetic meter. Used of a word or syllable.

  13. 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.

  14. Tending downward in price: a weak market for oil stocks.


[Middle English weike, from Old Norse veikr, pliant; see weik-2 in Indo-European roots.]
Synonyms: These adjectives mean lacking or showing a lack of strength. Weak is the most widely applicable: "These poor wretches ... were so weak they could hardly sit to their oars" (Daniel Defoe).
Feeble suggests pathetic or grievous physical or mental weakness or hopeless inadequacy: a feeble intellect; a feeble effort.
Frail implies delicacy and inability to endure or withstand: "an aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small" (Thomas Hardy.)
What is fragile is easily broken, damaged, or destroyed: a fragile, expensive vase; a fragile state of mind after the accident.
Infirm implies enfeeblement: "a poor, infirm, weak, and despis'd old man" (Shakespeare).
Decrepit describes what is weakened, worn out, or broken down by hard use or the passage of time: a decrepit building slated for demolition.
Debilitated suggests a gradual impairment of energy or strength: a debilitated constitution further weakened by overwork.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Word Origin & History

weak 
c.1300, from O.N. veikr "weak," cognate with O.E. wac "weak, pliant, soft," from P.Gmc. *waikwaz "yield," *wikanan "bend" (cf. O.S. wek, Swed. vek, M.Du. weec, Du. week "weak, soft, tender," O.H.G. weih "yielding, soft," Ger. weich "soft," from PIE base *weik- "to bend, wind" (see vicarious). Sense of "lacking authority" is first recorded 1423; that of "lacking moral strength" c.1375. Weaken (v.) is recorded from 1530; the earlier verb was simply weak (c.1374). Weak-kneed "wanting in resolve" is from 1870.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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Idioms & Phrases

weak

In addition to the idioms beginning with weak, also see spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.
Copyright © 1997. Published by Houghton Mifflin.
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