feeble

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English feble, also fieble,^[2][3] borrowed from Old French feble, also fieble and foible (modern French faible),^[4][5][6] later forms of fleible,^[4][5][7] from Latin flēbilis (“lamentable, to be wept over”),^[4][6][8][9] from fleō (“to weep”).^[4][6][8] The first l was lost in French by dissimilation.^[6][10][11] The Anglo-Norman form is recorded from 1113–19, already meaning physically weak, lacking in moral strength, and poor or ill-supplied.^[12] Etymonline and Barnhart trace the Latin verb to Proto-Indo-European *bhle- (“to howl”), the root of bleat,^[6][9] and Klein calls it imitative.^[13] The same Latin word gave Italian fievole, Occitan feble and Spanish feble;^[4][13][11] the later French form is the source of foible, a doublet of feeble.^[14][9][13]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of people or animals, lacking strength, weak, infirm: about 1175, in the Lambeth Homilies.^[4] Etymonline dates it to the late 12th century,^[6] and Barnhart to probably before 1200, in the Ancrene Riwle.^[9]

Semantic evolution

Ayto notes that the word began as a close relative of deplorable and lamentable: classical Latin flēbilis meant "worthy of being cried over", and only later "weak", the sense in which it passed into French.^[14] In English it was used of moral and intellectual weakness by about 1200,^[4] and in Middle English also meant poor, of inferior quality (of clothing, food and dwellings, c. 1275–1488), ill-supplied (c. 1330–1523) and miserable or ill-starred (1297–1540), senses now lost.^[4] Of things, it meant frail or fragile, and of a fortress weak in defence, from 1340 to 1776.^[4] Chaucer used the word thirty times, in the forms feble and fieble, and Gower thirteen times.^[15] The spelling feeble is first found probably before 1439 but became established only in the 16th century.^[9] The OED notes that the word now implies extreme weakness and suggests pity or contempt.^[4] Johnson (1755) defined it as "weak; debilitated; sickly; infirm; without strength of body or mind".^[16] Feeble-minded is recorded from 1534, in Tyndale's Bible, replacing the earlier feeble-witted (about 1385).^[9]

Timeline

• c. 1175 – of people or animals, lacking strength, weak.^[4]
• c. 1200 – lacking intellectual or moral strength.^[4]
• c. 1225 – verb, to become feeble (now archaic).^[4]
• c. 1275 – of inferior quality, poor (obsolete by 1488).^[4]
• 1340 – of things, frail, fragile (obsolete by 1776); noun, a feeble person.^[4][2]
• before 1340 – verb, to make feeble, enfeeble.^[4]
• 1534 – feeble-minded, in Tyndale's Bible.^[9]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Lacking normal physical strength or endurance; weak, frail or infirm: a feeble old dog.^[17][18][4]
2. Lacking mental or moral strength.^[18][4]
3. Lacking force or effectiveness; inadequate or unconvincing: a feeble attempt at a joke.^[18][17]
4. Faint or slight: a feeble light.^[17][4]
5. Easily influenced; indecisive.^[18]

Verb

1. (archaic) To make feeble; to enfeeble.^[17][4][19]

Noun

1. (obsolete) A feeble person.^[17][2]

Word family

• feebleness
• feebly
• feeblish
• enfeeble
• feeble-minded
• unfeeble

Related words

• foible
• bleat

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ Stratmann, Francis Henry (1891), A Middle-English Dictionary, revised by Henry Bradley, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
10. ^ Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
11. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
12. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
13. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
14. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
15. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
16. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
17. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
18. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
19. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press