Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun The condition or quality of being frail.
- noun A fault, especially a moral weakness.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The condition or quality of being frail; weakness of condition or of resolution; infirmity; liability to be deceived or seduced.
- noun A fault proceeding from human weakness; a foible; a sin of infirmity.
- noun Synonyms Imperfection, failng.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun The condition or quality of being frail, physically, mentally, or morally; frailness; infirmity; weakness of resolution; liableness to be deceived or seduced.
- noun A fault proceeding from weakness; foible; sin of infirmity.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun uncountable The condition quality of being
frail , physically, mentally, or morally;frailness ;infirmity ;weakness ofresolution ; liability to bedeceived orseduced . - noun A
fault proceeding fromweakness ;foible ; sin ofinfirmity .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun moral weakness
- noun the state of being weak in health or body (especially from old age)
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Don't turn your head away, your peculiar modesty would hide what you call frailty and what I call love.
Barks and Purrs 1873-1954 Colette 1913
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The final proof that he was human and his name frailty lies in the fact that he was a busybody.
Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 06 Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists Elbert Hubbard 1885
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Behold, therefore, O Lord, my humility and my frailty, which is altogether known to Thee.
XX. Book III: On Inward Consolation. Of Confession of our Infirmity and of the Miseries of this Life 1909
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If WOMAN be the weaker creature, her frailty should be the more readily forgiven.
Letter to the Women of England, on the Injustice of Mental Subordination 1799
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If WOMAN be the weaker creature, her frailty should be the more readily forgiven.
Letter to the Women of England, on the Injustice of Mental Subordination 1799
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Recent studies had suggested that these children possessed a kind of frailty, that their genetic vulnerability meant that certain triggers during early childhood development could cause irrevocable harm and lead them to certain ‘inevitable’ fates like a life of depression and anti-social behaviors.
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Her red, curving mouth of a child, cleft chin, and dimpled, tapering hands all promised a certain yieldingness of disposition -- a tendency to take always the line of least resistance -- but it was a charming, appealing kind of frailty which most people -- the sterner sex, certainly -- would be very ready to condone.
The Hermit of Far End Margaret Pedler
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There is a vast difference between recognising our frailty which is a fact, and insisting that our nature is made up of nothing else, which is not a fact.
Microcosmography or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters John Earle
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Sitting down to the dressing-table, she looked long and earnestly at her face; the rest she had taken had plumped and coloured it again, but there was a something, a kind of frailty, a blue darkness under the eyes.
Married Life The True Romance May Edginton 1920
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He usually wore, in compliment to his nursing duties, an apron in front; but, as his various avocations pressed hard upon his time, and as his own personal outfit was ever the last to be attended to, Tiff's nether garments had shown traces of that frailty which is incident to all human things.
Dred; A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp. In Two Volumes. Vol. II 1856
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