| 释义 |
WordReference Random House Learner's Dictionary of American English © 2024weak /wik/USA pronunciation adj., -er, -est. - liable to give way under pressure or strain:The walls are too weak to support the house.
- lacking in strength or vigor;
feeble:He's weak from hunger. - lacking in force, intensity, or ability to produce an effect:a weak president.
- lacking in logical or legal force:a weak argument.
- low in intelligence, ability, or skill:a weak mind; a weak speller.
- lacking in moral strength or force of character:too weak to resist temptation.
- not great in amount, volume, intensity, etc., or in a characteristic property or essential ingredient:a weak electrical current; a weak pulse.
- Businessshowing a decline in prices:a weak stock market.
weak•ly, adv. WordReference Random House Unabridged Dictionary of American English © 2024weak (wēk),USA pronunciation adj., -er, -est. - not strong;
liable to yield, break, or collapse under pressure or strain;
fragile;
frail:a weak fortress; a weak spot in armor. - lacking in bodily strength or healthy vigor, as from age or sickness;
feeble;
infirm:a weak old man; weak eyes. - not having much political strength, governing power, or authority:a weak nation; a weak ruler.
- lacking in force, potency, or efficacy;
impotent, ineffectual, or inadequate:weak sunlight; a weak wind. - lacking in rhetorical or creative force or effectiveness:a weak reply to the charges; one of the author's weakest novels.
- lacking in logical or legal force or soundness:a weak argument.
- deficient in mental power, intelligence, or judgment:a weak mind.
- not having much moral strength or firmness, resolution, or force of character:to prove weak under temptation; weak compliance.
- deficient in amount, volume, loudness, intensity, etc.;
faint;
slight:a weak current of electricity; a weak pulse. - deficient, lacking, or poor in something specified:a hand weak in trumps; I'm weak in spelling.
- deficient in the essential or usual properties or ingredients:weak tea.
- Phoneticsunstressed, as a syllable, vowel, or word.
- Grammar(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.
- Grammar(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'').
- Nutrition(of wheat or flour) having a low gluten content or having a poor quality of gluten.
- Photographythin;
not dense. - Business[Com.]characterized by a decline in prices:The market was weak in the morning but rallied in the afternoon.
- 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
- Middle English weik 1250–1300
- 1.See corresponding entry in Unabridged breakable, delicate.
- 2.See corresponding entry in Unabridged senile, sickly, unwell, invalid. 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.
- 4.See corresponding entry in Unabridged ineffective.
- 6.See corresponding entry in Unabridged unsound, ineffective, inadequate, illogical, inconclusive, unsustained, unsatisfactory, lame, vague.
- 7.See corresponding entry in Unabridged unintelligent, simple, foolish, stupid, senseless, silly.
- 8.See corresponding entry in Unabridged vacillating, wavering, unstable, irresolute, fluctuating, undecided, weak-kneed.
- 9.See corresponding entry in Unabridged slender, slim, inconsiderable, flimsy, poor, trifling, trivial.
- 11.See corresponding entry in Unabridged wanting, short, lacking.
- 1.See corresponding entry in Unabridged strong.
Collins Concise English Dictionary © HarperCollins Publishers:: weak /wiːk/ adj - lacking in physical or mental strength or force; frail or feeble
- liable to yield, break, or give way: a weak link in a chain
- lacking in resolution or firmness of character
- lacking strength, power, or intensity: a weak voice
- lacking strength in a particular part: a team weak in defence
- not functioning as well as normal: weak eyes
- easily upset: a weak stomach
- lacking in conviction, persuasiveness, etc: a weak argument
- lacking in political or strategic strength: a weak state
- lacking the usual, full, or desirable strength of flavour: weak tea
- 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
- belonging to any part-of-speech class, in any of various languages, whose inflections follow the more regular of two possible patterns
Compare strong - (of a syllable) not accented or stressed
- (of an industry, market, currency, securities, etc) falling in price or characterized by falling prices
Etymology: Old English wāc soft, miserable; related to Old Saxon wēk, Old High German weih, Old Norse veikrˈweakish adj |