weak

Definitions


[wiːk], (Adjective)

Definitions:
- lacking the power to perform physically demanding tasks; having little physical strength or energy
(e.g: she was recovering from flu, and was very weak)

- liable to break or give way under pressure; easily damaged
(e.g: the salamander's tail may be broken off at a weak spot near the base)

- lacking intensity or brightness
(e.g: a weak light from a single street lamp)

- denoting a class of verbs in Germanic languages that form the past tense and past participle by addition of a suffix (in English, typically -ed)

- relating to or denoting the weakest of the known kinds of force between particles, which acts only at distances less than about 10? cm, is very much weaker than the electromagnetic and the strong interactions, and conserves neither strangeness, parity, nor isospin


Phrases:
- the weaker sex
- the weakest link

Origin:
Old English wāc ‘pliant’, ‘of little worth’, ‘not steadfast’, reinforced in Middle English by Old Norse veikr, from a Germanic base meaning ‘yield, give way’




definition by Oxford Dictionaries