WEAKLING

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does weakling mean? 

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

1. a person who is physically weak and ineffectual

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

 Dictionary entry details 

• WEAKLING (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A person who is physically weak and ineffectual

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

doormat; weakling; wuss

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

individual; mortal; person; somebody; someone; soul (a human being)

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

namby-pamby (an insipid weakling who is foolishly sentimental)

softie; softy (a person who is weak and excessively sentimental)

chicken; crybaby; wimp (a person who lacks confidence, is irresolute and wishy-washy)

 Context examples 

I could kill you now, with a blow of my fist, for you are a miserable weakling.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

Pity and compassion had been generated in the subterranean barracoons of the slaves and were no more than the agony and sweat of the crowded miserables and weaklings.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Jane is not such a weakling as you would make her, he would say: she can bear a mountain blast, or a shower, or a few flakes of snow, as well as any of us.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

He was the figure that stood forth representative of the whole miserable mass of weaklings and inefficients who perished according to biological law on the ragged confines of life.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

But you slaves—it is too bad to be slaves, I grant—but you slaves dream of a society where the law of development will be annulled, where no weaklings and inefficients will perish, where every inefficient will have as much as he wants to eat as many times a day as he desires, and where all will marry and have progeny—the weak as well as the strong.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

"For I have faith in your love, not fear of their enmity. All things may go astray in this world, but not love. Love cannot go wrong unless it be a weakling that faints and stumbles by the way."

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)