FEEBLENESS

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does feebleness mean? 

• FEEBLENESS (noun)
  The noun FEEBLENESS has 2 senses:

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

2. the quality of lacking intensity or substance

  Familiarity information: FEEBLENESS used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• FEEBLENESS (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 ("feebleness" 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 "feebleness"):

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:

feeble (lacking strength)

feeble (lacking bodily or muscular strength or vitality)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The quality of lacking intensity or substance

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

feebleness; tenuity

Context example:

a shrill yet sweet tenuity of voice

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

weakness (the property of lacking physical or mental strength; liability to failure under pressure or stress or strain)

Derivation:

feeble (lacking strength or vigor)

feeble (pathetically lacking in force or effectiveness)

 Context examples 

And still there was that hint of the feebleness of the blind in his walk.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

She had used him ill, deserted and disappointed him; and worse, she had shewn a feebleness of character in doing so, which his own decided, confident temper could not endure.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

His aunt worried him by her cares, and Sir Thomas knew not how to bring down his conversation or his voice to the level of irritation and feebleness.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

Methodical, or well arranged, or very well delivered, it could not be expected to be; but it contained, when separated from all the feebleness and tautology of the narration, a substance to sink her spirit—especially with the corroborating circumstances, which her own memory brought in favour of Mr. Knightley's most improved opinion of Harriet.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

The sisters set out at a pace, slow as the feebleness of Marianne in an exercise hitherto untried since her illness required;—and they had advanced only so far beyond the house as to admit a full view of the hill, the important hill behind, when pausing with her eyes turned towards it, Marianne calmly said, "There, exactly there,"—pointing with one hand, "on that projecting mound,—there I fell; and there I first saw Willoughby."

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

Mrs. Crupp, who had been incessantly smiling to express sweet temper, and incessantly holding her head on one side, to express a general feebleness of constitution, and incessantly rubbing her hands, to express a desire to be of service to all deserving objects, gradually smiled herself, one-sided herself, and rubbed herself, out of the room.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Instead of living for, in, and with yourself, as a reasonable being ought, you seek only to fasten your feebleness on some other person's strength: if no one can be found willing to burden her or himself with such a fat, weak, puffy, useless thing, you cry out that you are ill-treated, neglected, miserable.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

The indecisiveness, or feebleness, of his movements was more pronounced.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

She shook her head, put the music aside, and after running over the keys for a minute, complained of feebleness in her fingers, and closed the instrument again; declaring however with firmness as she did so, that she should in future practice much.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

There was a hint, just a slight hint, of physical feebleness in his voice, and it was so strange that I looked quickly at him.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)