Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Susceptible to physical or emotional injury.
- adj. Susceptible to attack: "We are vulnerable both by water and land, without either fleet or army” ( Alexander Hamilton).
- adj. Open to censure or criticism; assailable.
- adj. Liable to succumb, as to persuasion or temptation.
- adj. Games In a position to receive greater penalties or bonuses in a hand of bridge. In a rubber, used of the pair of players who score 100 points toward game.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Capable of wounding; dangerous.
- Capable of being wounded; susceptible of wounds or injuries, literally or figuratively.
Wiktionary
- adj. More or most likely to be exposed to the chance of being attacked or harmed, either physically or emotionally.
- adj. More likely to be exposed to Malicious programs or viruses.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Capable of being wounded; susceptible of wounds or external injuries.
- adj. Liable to injury; subject to be affected injuriously; assailable.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. capable of being wounded or hurt
- adj. susceptible to attack
- adj. susceptible to criticism or persuasion or temptation
Etymologies
- Late Latin vulnerābilis, wounding, from Latin vulnerāre, to wound, from vulnus, vulner-, wound; see welə- in Indo-European roots.
Examples
“Lyon has been called many things, but never was the word vulnerable put to his name.”
“The word vulnerable itself comes from the Latin vulnerare which means 'to wound', and so at the root of vulnerability is my own sense of wounded-ness.”
“The language is lucid yet gripping and reflects popular human sentiment and passions, †observes D†™ Souza. “The term vulnerable has been specifically and repeatedly coined to reiterate the myriad vulnerabilities faced by the nation from political establishments.”
“I probably wasn't very clear, but I was using the term vulnerable to describe people who are undergoing therapy (anybody with mental health problems) - not the users of drugs per se.”
“Protection and care for the vulnerable is at the very roots under civilization, and the attacks on this take many forms.”
“Protecting the vulnerable is an essential function of government and affordable compassion is an indelible element of contemporary liberalism.”
“Then someone else said, The word 'vulnerable' has been going around.”
“Rep. Mark Miloscia, D-Federal Way, introduced a slew of unsuccessful amendments, arguing that the underlying bill doesn't do enough to protect the rights of surrogate mothers and doesn't assign adequate value to the work of what he termed "vulnerable women.”
“The military reverberations of the word "vulnerable"-unguarded, unfortified, defenseless-as well as its more visceral associations-exposed, naked-I felt intensely as I thought about the hard attitude rampant today that everyone is on his or her own, not only poor families struggling to survive (cuts to welfare), but also children (cuts to education) and the elderly (cuts to Medicare and Social Security); and the ruthless attitude equally rampant today that no one owes anybody anything, that any "sacrifice" in the name of the public good, of the world we share together, our commonwealth, is too much to ask of anyone.”
“The academics who question the mass benefits of expanding coverage still think that doing so improves outcomes among certain vulnerable subgroups, like infants and patients with HIV.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘vulnerable’.
-
Vocab2
astute, authentic, delicacy, derogatory, devour, figment, mythical, plumage, predatory, prior, scavenge, slaughter and 3 more...
-
maf
sectarian, sectarian =narrow..., oppression, oppress, sort out, worldwide, legit, constrain, constrained, I feel constrained, constraint, divisive and 56 more...
bilby This word is vunnerable to loss of its first l, even by the manglemouths who pass for reporters these days. Apr 3, 2012
bilby "I was just reading an article in the New York Times by Michael Pollen about food and the fact that our entire agricultural system is built on cheap oil. As a consequence, our agriculture sector actually is contributing more greenhouse gases than our transportation sector. And in the mean time, it's creating monocultures that are vulnerable to national security threats, are now vulnerable to sky-high food prices or crashes in food prices, huge swings in commodity prices, and are partly responsible for the explosion in our healthcare costs because they're contributing to type 2 diabetes, stroke and heart disease, obesity, all the things that are driving our huge explosion in healthcare costs."
- Barack Obama, The Full Obama Interview, time.com, 23 Oct 2008. Feb 13, 2009