faint

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• adjective Done with little strength or vigor; feeble.
• adjective So weak as to be difficult to perceive;
• adjective Lacking clarity or distinctness.
• adjective Small in degree or amount; meager.
• adjective Lacking conviction, boldness, or courage; timid.
• adjective Likely to fall into a faint; dizzy and weak.
• noun An abrupt, usually brief loss of consciousness, generally associated with failure of normal blood circulation.
• intransitive verb To fall into a usually brief state of unconsciousness.
• intransitive verb Archaic To weaken in purpose or spirit.

from The Century Dictionary.

• To become weak in spirit; lose spirit or courage; sink into dejection; despond; droop.
• To become faint, weak, or exhausted in body; fail in strength or vigor; languish; droop; especially, to fall into a swoon; lose sensation and consciousness; swoon: sometimes with away.
• To become faint to the view; become gradually dim or indistinct; fade; vanish.
• To make faint; weaken; depress; dishearten; deject.
• Feigned; simulated.
• Having or showing little force or earnestness; not forcible or vigorous; not active; wanting strength, energy, or heartiness: as, a faint resistance; a faint exertion.
• Having little spirit or animation; dispirited; dejected; depressed.
• Having little courage; cowardly; timorous.
• Having an intense feeling of weakness or exhaustion; inclined to swoon: as, faint with hunger; faint and sore with travel.
• Weak by reason of smallness or slenderness; small; slender.
• Having little clearness or distinctness; hardly perceptible by or feebly affecting the senses; indistinct; deficient in brightness, vividness, or clearness, loudness, sharpness, or force; not well defined; feeble; dim: as, a faint light; a faint color; a faint resemblance.
• noun One of the colored lines (usually pale) on writing-paper.
• noun plural The impure spirit which comes over first and last in the distillation of whisky, the former being called the strong, and the latter, which is much more abundant, the weak faints. This crude spirit is much impregnated with fetid essential oil (fusel-oil); it is therefore very unwholesome, and must be purified by rectification.
• noun A fainting-fit; a swoon.
• Oppressive: applied to the atmosphere.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun The act of fainting, or the state of one who has fainted; a swoon. [R.] See fainting, n.
• adjective Lacking strength; weak; languid; inclined to swoon.
• adjective Wanting in courage, spirit, or energy; timorous; cowardly; dejected; depressed.”
• adjective Lacking distinctness; hardly perceptible; striking the senses feebly; not bright, or loud, or sharp, or forcible; weak.
• adjective Performed, done, or acted, in a weak or feeble manner; not exhibiting vigor, strength, or energy; slight
• transitive verb obsolete To cause to faint or become dispirited; to depress; to weaken.
• intransitive verb To become weak or wanting in vigor; to grow feeble; to lose strength and color, and the control of the bodily or mental functions; to swoon; -- sometimes with away. See fainting, n.
• intransitive verb To sink into dejection; to lose courage or spirit; to become depressed or despondent.
• intransitive verb To decay; to disappear; to vanish.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• adjective Lacking strength; weak; languid; inclined to swoon; as, faint with fatigue, hunger, or thirst.
• adjective Wanting in courage, spirit, or energy; timorous; cowardly; dejected; depressed.
• adjective Lacking distinctness; hardly perceptible; striking the senses feebly; not bright, or loud, or sharp, or forcible; weak; as, a faint color, or sound.
• adjective Performed, done, or acted, in a weak or feeble manner; not exhibiting vigor, strength, or energy; slight; as, faint efforts; faint resistance.
• noun The act of fainting.
• noun rare The state of one who has fainted; a swoon.
• verb intransitive To lose consciousness. Caused by a lack of oxygen or nutrients to the brain, usually as a result of a suddenly reduced blood flow (may be caused by emotional trauma, loss of blood or various medical conditions).

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• adjective lacking strength or vigor
• adjective lacking conviction or boldness or courage
• adjective lacking clarity or distinctness
• adjective weak and likely to lose consciousness
• noun a spontaneous loss of consciousness caused by insufficient blood to the brain
• adjective indistinctly understood or felt or perceived
• adjective deficient in magnitude; barely perceptible; lacking clarity or brightness or loudness etc
• verb pass out from weakness, physical or emotional distress due to a loss of blood supply to the brain