weak

[ week ]

/ wik /

adjective, weak·er, weak·est.

not strong; liable to yield, break, or collapse under pressure or strain; fragile; frail: a weak fortress; a weak spot in armor.

lacking in bodily strength or healthy vigor, as from age or sickness; feeble; infirm: a weak old man; weak eyes.

not having much political strength, governing power, or authority: a weak nation; a weak ruler.

lacking in force, potency, or efficacy; impotent, ineffectual, or inadequate: weak sunlight; a weak wind.

lacking in rhetorical or creative force or effectiveness: a weak reply to the charges; one of the author's weakest novels.

lacking in logical or legal force or soundness: a weak argument.

deficient in mental power, intelligence, or judgment: a weak mind.

not having much moral strength or firmness, resolution, or force of character: to prove weak under temptation; weak compliance.

deficient in amount, volume, loudness, intensity, etc.; faint; slight: a weak current of electricity; a weak pulse.

deficient, lacking, or poor in something specified: a hand weak in trumps; I'm weak in spelling.

deficient in the essential or usual properties or ingredients: weak tea.

unstressed, as a syllable, vowel, or word.

(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.

(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”).

(of wheat or flour) having a low gluten content or having a poor quality of gluten.

Photography. thin; not dense.

Commerce. characterized by a decline in prices: The market was weak in the morning but rallied in the afternoon.

Origin of weak

1250–1300; Middle English weik < Old Norse veikr; cognate with Old English wāc, Dutch week, German weich; akin to Old English wīcan to yield, give way, Old Norse vīkja to move, turn, draw back, German weichen to yield

SYNONYMS FOR weak

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.

SEE SYNONYMS FOR weak ON THESAURUS.COM

ANTONYMS FOR weak

1 strong.

SEE ANTONYMS FOR weak ON THESAURUS.COM

OTHER WORDS FROM weak

o·ver·weak, adjective o·ver·weak·ly, adverb o·ver·weak·ness, noun

Words nearby weak

we'd, we'll, we're, we've, wea, weak, weak accumulation point, weak as a kitten, weak ending, weak force, weak interaction

Example sentences from the Web for weak

A lot of people think females are too weak for the job, but I know that all the men she worked with saw her as one of the guys.

The Mystery Death Of A Female Firefighter |Christopher Moraff |December 13, 2014 |DAILY BEAST
Alas, his soul is willing, but his flesh is weak and he whiffs.

After Torture Report, Our Moral Authority As a Nation Is Gone |Nick Gillespie |December 11, 2014 |DAILY BEAST
The paperwork was spotless: he had died in transit, the conjunction of a weak heart and long trip.

A Million Ways to Die in Prison |Daniel Genis |December 8, 2014 |DAILY BEAST
The general rap on him is: reasonably well-intentioned but weak.

After the Israel Synagogue Massacre: A New Intifada? |Michael Tomasky |November 19, 2014 |DAILY BEAST

But beyond that point, secrecy creates its own problems: high costs and weak oversight.

Is the Pentagon’s $55 Billion Stealth Bomber Too Big a Secret? |Bill Sweetman |September 22, 2014 |DAILY BEAST
Once more it was shown how weak an arm is artillery against an enemy who lies in shelter.

The Great Boer War |Arthur Conan Doyle
A few days before, Si, while passing near the hospital, saw a weak convalescent faint and fall.

Si Klegg, Book 6 (of 6) |John McElroy
The room was furnished with a bed, a chair that was always threatening to come to pieces and a desk with weak carved legs.

Marching Men |Sherwood Anderson
I am not weak; it is only that my heart is sore for those I love.

Three Dramas |Bjrnstjerne M. Bjrnson
He would be weak and tired, but he would still be able to travel and find food.

Forest Neighbors |William Davenport Hulbert

British Dictionary definitions for weak

weak

/ (wiːk) /

adjective

lacking in physical or mental strength or force; frail or feeble

liable to yield, break, or give way a weak link in a chain

lacking in resolution or firmness of character

lacking strength, power, or intensity a weak voice

lacking strength in a particular part a team weak in defence

not functioning as well as normalweak eyes
easily upseta weak stomach

lacking in conviction, persuasiveness, etc a weak argument

lacking in political or strategic strength a weak state

lacking the usual, full, or desirable strength of flavour weak tea

grammar

denoting or belonging to a class of verbs, in certain languages including the Germanic languages, whose conjugation relies on inflectional endings rather than internal vowel gradation, as look, looks, looking, looked
belonging to any part-of-speech class, in any of various languages, whose inflections follow the more regular of two possible patternsCompare strong (def. 13)

(of a syllable) not accented or stressed

(of a fuel-air mixture) containing a relatively low proportion of fuel Compare rich (def. 13)

photog having low density or contrast; thin

(of an industry, market, currency, securities, etc) falling in price or characterized by falling prices

Derived forms of weak

weakish, adjective weakishly, adverb weakishness, noun

Word Origin for weak

Old English wāc soft, miserable; related to Old Saxon wēk, Old High German weih, Old Norse veikr

Idioms and Phrases with weak

weak

In addition to the idioms beginning with weak

weak as a kitten
weak link
weak moment, in a

also see:

spirit is willing but the flesh is weak

BROWSE DICTIONARY

Learning

weak

adjective, weak·er, weak·est.

Origin of weak

SYNONYMS FOR weak

ANTONYMS FOR weak

OTHER WORDS FROM weak

Words nearby weak

Example sentences from the Web for weak

British Dictionary definitions for weak

adjective

Derived forms of weak

Word Origin for weak

Idioms and Phrases with weak

BROWSE DICTIONARY

Learning

weak

adjective, weak·er, weak·est.

Origin of weak

SYNONYMS FOR weak

ANTONYMS FOR weak

OTHER WORDS FROM weak

Words nearby weak

Words related to weak

Example sentences from the Web for weak

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []) .push({}); British Dictionary definitions for weak

adjective

Derived forms of weak

Word Origin for weak

Idioms and Phrases with weak

British Dictionary definitions for weak