DEBILITY

Pronunciation (US):

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does debility mean? 

• DEBILITY (noun)
  The noun DEBILITY has 1 sense:

1. the state of being weak in health or body (especially from old age)

  Familiarity information: DEBILITY used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DEBILITY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The state of being weak in health or body (especially from old age)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Synonyms:

debility; feebleness; frailness; frailty; infirmity; valetudinarianism

Hypernyms ("debility" is a kind of...):

softness; unfitness (poor physical condition; being out of shape or out of condition (as from a life of ease and luxury))

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "debility"):

asthenia; astheny (an abnormal loss of strength)

cachexia; cachexy; wasting (any general reduction in vitality and strength of body and mind resulting from a debilitating chronic disease)

Derivation:

debile (lacking bodily or muscular strength or vitality)

debilitate (make weak)

 Context examples 

As I was in a state of extreme debility, I resolved to sail directly towards the town, as a place where I could most easily procure nourishment.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

There was not only the debility of recent illness to assist: there was also, as she now learnt, nerves much affected, spirits much depressed to calm and raise, and her own imagination added that there must be a mind to be properly guided.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

He was small, as I have said; I was struck besides with the shocking expression of his face, with his remarkable combination of great muscular activity and great apparent debility of constitution, and—last but not least—with the odd, subjective disturbance caused by his neighbourhood.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

I was ready to sink from fatigue and hunger, but being surrounded by a crowd, I thought it politic to rouse all my strength, that no physical debility might be construed into apprehension or conscious guilt.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)