weakly
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English
[edit]Pronunciation
[edit]Etymology 1
[edit]From Old English wāclīċe (“weakly”), equivalent to weak -ly; compare Old English wāclīċ (“weak; ignoble; mean”), and Old Norse veikligr (“weakly; sick”); both ultimately from Proto-Germanic *waikalīkaz (“weakly; weak”).
Adjective
[edit]weakly (comparative weaklier, superlative weakliest)
- Frail, sickly or of a delicate constitution; weak.
- 1885, Sir Richard Burton, The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Night 18:
- I lay in weakly case and confined to my bed for four months before I was able to rise and health returned to me.
- 1889, WB Yeats, The Ballad of Moll Magee:
- I'd always been but weakly, / And my baby was just born; / A neighbour minded her by day, / I minded her till morn.
- 1922, Virginia Woolf, chapter 1, in Jacob's Room:
- "Oh, a huge crab," Jacob murmured—and begins his journey on weakly legs on the sandy bottom.
Derived terms
[edit]Etymology 2
[edit]From Middle English weykly, equivalent to weak -ly. Compare Old High German weihlīcho (“weakly”), Middle English wocliche, wokli, wacliche (both from Proto-Germanic *waikalīkō).
Adverb
[edit]weakly (comparative more weakly, superlative most weakly)
Derived terms
[edit]Translations
[edit]with little strength or force
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Categories:
- English 2-syllable words
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- Rhymes:English/iːk.li
- Rhymes:English/iːk.li/2 syllables
- English terms with homophones
- English terms inherited from Old English
- English terms derived from Old English
- English terms suffixed with -ly
- English terms inherited from Proto-Germanic
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- English terms inherited from Middle English
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