weak
Americanadjective
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not strong; liable to yield, break, or collapse under pressure or strain; fragile; frail.
a weak fortress; a weak spot in armor.
- Antonyms:
- strong
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lacking in bodily strength or healthy vigor, as from age or sickness; feeble; infirm.
a weak old man; weak eyes.
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not having much political strength, governing power, or authority.
a weak nation; a weak ruler.
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lacking in force, potency, or efficacy; impotent, ineffectual, or inadequate.
weak sunlight; a weak wind.
- Synonyms:
- ineffective
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lacking in rhetorical or creative force or effectiveness.
a weak reply to the charges; one of the author's weakest novels.
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lacking in logical or legal force or soundness.
a weak argument.
- Synonyms:
- vague, lame, unsatisfactory, inconclusive, illogical, inadequate, ineffective, unsound
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deficient in mental power, intelligence, or judgment.
a weak mind.
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not having much moral strength or firmness, resolution, or force of character.
to prove weak under temptation; weak compliance.
- Synonyms:
- weak-kneed, undecided, irresolute, unstable, vacillating
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deficient in amount, volume, loudness, intensity, etc.; faint; slight.
a weak current of electricity; a weak pulse.
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deficient, lacking, or poor in something specified.
a hand weak in trumps; I'm weak in spelling.
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deficient in the essential or usual properties or ingredients.
weak tea.
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unstressed, as a syllable, vowel, or word.
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(of Germanic verbs) inflected with suffixes, without inherited change of the root vowel, as English work, worked, or having a preterit ending in a dental, as English bring, brought.
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(of Germanic nouns and adjectives) inflected with endings originally appropriate to stems terminating in -n, as the adjective alte in German der alte Mann (“the old man”).
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(of wheat or flour) having a low gluten content or having a poor quality of gluten.
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Photography. thin; not dense.
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Commerce. characterized by a decline in prices.
The market was weak in the morning but rallied in the afternoon.
adjective
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lacking in physical or mental strength or force; frail or feeble
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liable to yield, break, or give way
a weak link in a chain
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lacking in resolution or firmness of character
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lacking strength, power, or intensity
a weak voice
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lacking strength in a particular part
a team weak in defence
-
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not functioning as well as normal
weak eyes
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easily upset
a weak stomach
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lacking in conviction, persuasiveness, etc
a weak argument
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lacking in political or strategic strength
a weak state
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lacking the usual, full, or desirable strength of flavour
weak tea
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grammar
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denoting or belonging to a class of verbs, in certain languages including the Germanic languages, whose conjugation relies on inflectional endings rather than internal vowel gradation, as look, looks, looking, looked
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belonging to any part-of-speech class, in any of various languages, whose inflections follow the more regular of two possible patterns Compare strong
-
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(of a syllable) not accented or stressed
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(of a fuel-air mixture) containing a relatively low proportion of fuel Compare rich
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photog having low density or contrast; thin
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(of an industry, market, currency, securities, etc) falling in price or characterized by falling prices
Synonym Usage
Weak, decrepit, feeble, weakly imply a lack of strength or of good health. Weak means not physically strong, because of extreme youth, old age, illness, etc.: weak after an attack of fever. Decrepit means old and broken in health to a marked degree: decrepit and barely able to walk. Feeble denotes much the same as weak, but connotes being pitiable or inferior: feeble and almost senile. Weakly suggests a long-standing sickly condition, a state of chronic bad health: A weakly child may become a strong adult.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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overweaknessnoun
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weakishnessnoun
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overweakadjective
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weakishadjective
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overweaklyadverb
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weakishlyadverb
Inflected Forms
Adjectives
Etymology
Origin of weak
First recorded in 1250–1300; Middle English weik, from Old Norse veikr; cognate with Old English wāc, Dutch week, German weich; akin to Old English wīcan “to yield, give way,” Old Norse vīkja “to move, turn, draw back,” German weichen “to yield”
Explanation
Weak is the opposite of strong. Muscles, arguments, defenses, and coffee can all be weak — and when they are, it's not good. Anything weak is lacking in strength or power. If your muscles are weak, you can't lift much. If your will power is weak, you give up easily. Food and drinks with little flavor are weak, and an argument that is flimsy is weak. Whenever anything is lacking or not what it should be, it's weak. And if you come across something really lame — like a dumb TV show — you could say, "That's so weak."
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
They take advantage of Ecuador's weak border controls, underfunded security forces, and long Pacific coast.
From BBC ● Jul. 28, 2026
But the matriarch isn’t out of the woods yet after being found weak and unable to fly on the north shore of Big Bear Lake on July 18.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 28, 2026
The index nevertheless remains at a weak level, having nosedived after the outbreak of the war in Iran.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 27, 2026
“Post megacap earnings, we expect stocks will be more sensitive to higher yields, rising oil and imminent equity supply ahead of a traditionally weak seasonal period,” they said.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 27, 2026
The weak flashlight beams didn’t penetrate far below the surface, and they sometimes died altogether when their batteries ran out or the boys in the boat fell asleep.
From "Flying Through Water" by Mamle Wolo
A weaker greenback makes American exports cheaper and more competitive abroad, while making imports more expensive.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 29, 2026
Rats that ate high-fat and high-sugar diets early in life later showed weaker communication between the gut and the hippocampus.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 29, 2026
The attorney general also had weaker Republican support than in other recent surveys, with nearly one in five GOP voters saying they were undecided or would vote for Talarico.
From Salon ● Jul. 29, 2026
He later decided he needed a larger telescope to help researchers detect weaker signals from space, and the Lovell telescope was completed in 1957.
From BBC ● Jul. 28, 2026
You are even weaker than Krios and Hyperion.
From "The House of Hades" by Rick Riordan
The deal would extend Uber’s scale in an area where it is weakest geographically and could force smaller players such as Lyft to consider mergers and acquisitions, the analysts say.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 28, 2026
Peace had broken out in the Middle East, and oil prices were having their weakest quarter in years, easing inflationary pressure.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 24, 2026
In May, the Russian economy ministry cut its GDP growth forecast to 0.4% for 2026, putting the country on course for its weakest economic growth since 2022.
From BBC ● Jul. 18, 2026
As for the weakest themes, UBS flagged consumer staples and consumer discretionary, citing macroeconomic worries and insufficient earnings revisions.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 15, 2026
Of the four fundamental forces, gravity is considered the weakest, despite its theoretically endless range.
From "We Are the Ants" by Shaun David Hutchinson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
