See Also: HELPLESSNESS, INSULTS, PERSONAL TRAITS, SOFTNESS

1. Arms felt like spaghetti —Dan Wakefield
2. As much strength as a seaweed —Ann Beattie
3. (A poor weak rag of a man with a) backbone like a piece of string —Dorothy Canfield Fisher
4. Boneless as poured water —George Garrett
5. Diminished and flat, as after radical surgery —Sylvia Plath
6. (The great white sails of the ships were) drooping like weary wings —Mazo De La Roche
7. Feeble as a babe —Ted Hughes
8. Feel as if I’m strung together by threads that pop and snap —Rosellen Brown
9. Feel diluted, like watered-down stew —Susan Minot
10. Felt a faintness stunning her senses as though someone had cut open the arteries of her wrists and all the blood rushed out of her body —Anzia Yezierska
11. Felt as if my legs had turned to warm lead —Stephen King
12. Forceful as a wet noodle —Anon
13. Forceless as a child —Aeschylus
14. The program has been like an elderly turtle on its back: it twitches feebly every now and then, but gets nowhere —Jack D. Kirwan, Wall Street Journal, March 19, 1987

    The turtle comparison referred to the tragedy-weakened Challenger space program.

15. Knees like liquid —Elizabeth Spencer
16. (The man sprawls … spent, empty) limp as a drowned man tossed on the sand —George Garrett
17. (He was) limp as laundry —W. P. Kinsella
18. (I must have been worked up even more than I’d thought those past weeks, for now that it was all over I was) limp as a rag —Wilbur Daniel Steele
19. Looking like an advertisement for jelly —Mike Fredman
20. My legs felt as if … made of two lengths of rope —George Garrett
21. No more backbone than a chocolate eclair —Theodore Roosevelt

    Roosevelt coined this simile about President McKinley when he was Secretary of the Navy.

22. She was like an overstretched bow, almost breaking —Stephen French Whitman
23. Softened and weakened, like a wax doll left too near the flame —George Garrett
24. Strength running out of him like sawdust —Vicki Baum
25. Was washed out like a disemboweled sack —Aharon Megged
26. Weak as a broken arm —Raymond Chandler
27. Weak as air —Ann Bradstreet

    By contrast, you could also say “Strong as air,” especially if you’ve ever seen a ship in dry dock.

28. Weak as an nonagenarian —T. Coraghessan Boyle
29. (He’s as) weak as a stick —Mary Lee Settle

    In Settle’s novel, Celebration, the simile relates to emotional weakness.

30. Weak as water —The Holy Bible/Ezkiel
31. Weak … like a cream puff with the cream squeezed out —Tom Robbins
32. Weak, like a moth newly broken out from its chrysalis —E. F. Benson