weak
Americanadjective
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weaker,
comparative
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weakest
superlative
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not strong; liable to yield, break, or collapse under pressure or strain; fragile; frail.
a weak fortress; a weak spot in armor.
- Antonyms:
- strong
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lacking in bodily strength or healthy vigor, as from age or sickness; feeble; infirm.
a weak old man; weak eyes.
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not having much political strength, governing power, or authority.
a weak nation; a weak ruler.
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lacking in force, potency, or efficacy; impotent, ineffectual, or inadequate.
weak sunlight; a weak wind.
- Synonyms:
- ineffective
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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.
- Synonyms:
- vague, lame, unsatisfactory, inconclusive, illogical, inadequate, ineffective, unsound
-
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.
- Synonyms:
- weak-kneed, undecided, irresolute, unstable, vacillating
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deficient in amount, volume, loudness, intensity, etc.; faint; slight.
a weak current of electricity; a weak pulse.
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deficient, lacking, or poor in something specified.
a hand weak in trumps; I'm weak in spelling.
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deficient in the essential or usual properties or ingredients.
weak tea.
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unstressed, as a syllable, vowel, or word.
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(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.
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(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”).
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(of wheat or flour) having a low gluten content or having a poor quality of gluten.
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Photography. thin; not dense.
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Commerce. characterized by a decline in prices.
The market was weak in the morning but rallied in the afternoon.
adjective
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lacking in physical or mental strength or force; frail or feeble
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liable to yield, break, or give way
a weak link in a chain
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lacking in resolution or firmness of character
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lacking strength, power, or intensity
a weak voice
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lacking strength in a particular part
a team weak in defence
-
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not functioning as well as normal
weak eyes
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easily upset
a weak stomach
-
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lacking in conviction, persuasiveness, etc
a weak argument
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lacking in political or strategic strength
a weak state
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lacking the usual, full, or desirable strength of flavour
weak tea
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grammar
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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
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belonging to any part-of-speech class, in any of various languages, whose inflections follow the more regular of two possible patterns Compare strong
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(of a syllable) not accented or stressed
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(of a fuel-air mixture) containing a relatively low proportion of fuel Compare rich
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photog having low density or contrast; thin
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(of an industry, market, currency, securities, etc) falling in price or characterized by falling prices
Synonym Usage
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 Word Forms
Derived Forms
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overweaknessnoun
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weakishnessnoun
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overweakadjective
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weakishadjective
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overweaklyadverb
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weakishlyadverb
Inflected Forms
Adjectives
Etymology
Origin of weak
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”
Explanation
Weak is the opposite of strong. Muscles, arguments, defenses, and coffee can all be weak — and when they are, it's not good. Anything weak is lacking in strength or power. If your muscles are weak, you can't lift much. If your will power is weak, you give up easily. Food and drinks with little flavor are weak, and an argument that is flimsy is weak. Whenever anything is lacking or not what it should be, it's weak. And if you come across something really lame — like a dumb TV show — you could say, "That's so weak."
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
A Z boson is a neutral elementary particle associated with the weak force.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 6, 2026
For investors who own fewer shares of the market’s winners than the benchmark, weak breadth can of course be a problem.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 6, 2026
The weak payrolls number can provide a slightly more balanced sentiment around interest rates by dropping the urgency for another Fed hike while keeping inflation as the central bank’s primary concern, he says.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 5, 2026
This makes the recent fall in the markets more worrying - since households, already struggling from a weak job market, high inflation and faltering consumption, are now seeing their equity savings take a beating too.
From BBC ● Oct. 5, 2026
The Goldman saleswoman made a weak effort to claim that, even as the index of subprime mortgage bonds collapsed, the market for insuring them hadn’t budged.
From "The Big Short" by Michael Lewis
Higher crude prices threaten to swell its import bill, while a weaker rupee makes dollar-priced imports more expensive.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 7, 2026
For foreign investors, the problem of muted returns has been compounded by a weaker rupee.
From BBC ● Oct. 5, 2026
Stocks rose as investors bet that the Fed won’t be forced to raise rates as aggressively as previously feared after a weaker than expected jobs report.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 2, 2026
Their experiments connected APOE4 with lipid buildup in astrocytes, weaker clearance of alpha-synuclein, and the formation of toxic protein deposits.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 1, 2026
Ellis had barely spoken ten words during the journey, but the absence of his looming figure among them made their group seem very much smaller and weaker.
From "Rowan of Rin" by Emily Rodda
The global surge in interest rates has exposed the country, once an oasis of relative stability, as one of Europe’s weakest links.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 6, 2026
“Groups that have led powerfully from the rolling recession trough have been among the weakest areas recently,” Wilson added, outlining sectors like automotives, semiconductors and industrials.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 29, 2026
That stance remains even after its weakest retail sales since going public in 2021 forced the company to soften its sales outlook.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 14, 2026
In fact, it would be no surprise if the Azerbaijani champions were by some distance the weakest of the eight league stage opponents Michael Carrick's side will come up against.
From BBC ● Sep. 10, 2026
Bobby’s opponents were not necessarily the strongest in the tournament, nor were they the weakest.
From "Endgame" by Frank Brady
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
