weak

[ week ]
See synonyms for: weakweakerweakest on Thesaurus.com

adjective,weak·er, weak·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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  10. unstressed, as a syllable, vowel, or word.

  11. (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.

  12. (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”).

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

  14. Photography. thin; not dense.

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

Origin of weak

1
First recorded in 1250–1300; Middle English weik, from 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”

synonym study For weak

2. 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.

Other words for weak

Opposites for weak

Other words from weak

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

Words Nearby weak

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use weak in a sentence

British Dictionary definitions for weak

weak

/ (wiːk) /


adjective
  1. lacking in physical or mental strength or force; frail or feeble

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

  1. lacking in resolution or firmness of character

  2. lacking strength, power, or intensity: a weak voice

  3. lacking strength in a particular part: a team weak in defence

    • not functioning as well as normal: weak eyes

    • easily upset: a weak stomach

  4. lacking in conviction, persuasiveness, etc: a weak argument

  5. lacking in political or strategic strength: a weak state

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

  7. 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 patterns: Compare strong (def. 13)

  8. (of a syllable) not accented or stressed

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

  10. photog having low density or contrast; thin

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

Origin of weak

1
Old English wāc soft, miserable; related to Old Saxon wēk, Old High German weih, Old Norse veikr

Derived forms of weak

  • weakish, adjective
  • weakishly, adverb
  • weakishness, noun

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Other 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

The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.