strength

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strength

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From Middle English strengthe, from Old English strengþu (“strength”), from Proto-West Germanic *strangiþu (“strongness; strength”), equivalent to strong +‎ -th. Cognate with Dutch strengte (“strength”), German Low German Strengde, Strengte (“harshness; rigidity; strictness; severity”).

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /stɹɛŋ(k)θ/
• (General American) IPA^(key): , ,
  • (pin–pen merger) IPA^(key):
  • (pre-/ŋ/ tensing) IPA^(key): ,

    • Audio (US):

      (file)

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛŋθ, -ɛnθ

strength (countable and uncountable, plural strengths)

1. The quality or degree of being strong.

   Antonym: weakness

   It requires great strength to lift heavy objects.

   • c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, :

     Our castle’s strength will laugh a siege to scorn.

   • 1918, W B Maxwell, chapter V, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:

     He was thinking; but the glory of the song, the swell from the great organ, the clustered lights, […] , the height and vastness of this noble fane, its antiquity and its strength—all these things seemed to have their part as causes of the thrilling emotion that accompanied his thoughts.

2. The intensity of a force or power; potency.

   He had the strength of ten men.

   • 1699, William Temple, Heads designed for an essay on conversations‎:

     Study gives strength to the mind; conversation, grace: the first apt to give stiffness, the other suppleness: one gives substance and form to the statue, the other polishes it.

3. The strongest part of something; that on which confidence or reliance is based.
   • 1611, The Holy Bible,  (King James Version), London: Robert Barker, , →OCLC, Psalms 46:1:

     God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

   • 1649, Jeremy Taylor, The Great Examplar of Sanctity and Holy Life according to the Christian Institution‎, London: Francis Ash, Part 1, Section 4, Discourse 2, p. 66:

     […] certainly there is not in the world a greater strength against temptations, then is deposited in an obedient understanding […] .

4. A positive attribute.

   Antonym: weakness

   to play to one's strengths

   We all have our own strengths and weaknesses.

   • 2013, Deborah Hay, My Body, The Buddhist, →ISBN, page 78:

     The compulsion to expose, renegotiate, or reinvent the strengths and weaknesses of dance tradition offers little in its final outcome to attract the average dance-goer.

5. (obsolete) An armed force, a body of troops.
   • 1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Sixt”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, :

     Thou princely leader of our English strength,
     Never so needful on the earth of France,

   • c. 1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life and Death of King Iohn”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, :

     That done, dissever your united strengths,
     And part your mingled colours once again;

6. (obsolete) A strong place; a stronghold.
   • 1667, John Milton, “Book VII”, in Paradise Lost. , London: [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker ; nd by Robert Boulter ; nd Matthias Walker, , →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: , London: Basil Montagu Pickering , 1873, →OCLC, lines 140-143:

     All like himself rebellious, by whose aid
     This inaccessible high strength, the seat
     Of Deitie supream, us dispossest,
     He trusted to have seis’d […]

7. (graph theory) The minimum ratio of the number of edges removed from a given graph to components created, over all possible removals.

strength (third-person singular simple present strengths, present participle strengthing, simple past and past participle strengthed)

1. (obsolete) To strengthen (all senses).

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:strengthen

   • 1526, [William Tyndale, transl.], The Newe Testamẽt  (Tyndale Bible), [Worms, Germany: Peter Schöffer], →OCLC, Colossians j:, folio cclviiii, verso:

     ſtrengthed with all myght / thꝛowe hys gloꝛious power / vnto all pacience / and longe ſufferynge with ioyfulnes

   • 1529, John Frith, A piſtle to the Chriſten reader ‎:

     Then ſhalt thow perceave what it meaneth that the power of this wretched monſtre / muſt be ſtrengthed / by anothers power and not by his awne.

   • 1550, Edward Halle, “King Henry the viij.”, in The Vnion of the Two Noble and Illuſtre Famelies of Lancaſtre and Yoꝛke‎, page 1271:

     In witnes wherof we haue cauſed this pꝛeſent wꝛiting to be ſtrengthed with the ſeal of our facultie […]