weakly

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English

Pronunciation

Etymology 1

From weak +‎ -ly; compare Old English wāclīċ (“weak; ignoble; mean”), and Old Norse veikligr (“weakly; sick”); both ultimately from Proto-Germanic *waikalīkaz (“weakly; weak”).

Adjective

weakly (comparative weaklier, superlative weakliest)

  1. Frail, sickly or of a delicate constitution; weak.
    • 1885, Sir Richard Burton, The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Night 18:
      I lay in weakly case and confined to my bed for four months before I was able to rise and health returned to me.
    • 1889, WB Yeats, The Ballad of Moll Magee:
      I'd always been but weakly, / And my baby was just born; / A neighbour minded her by day, / I minded her till morn.
    • 1922, Virginia Woolf, chapter 1, in Jacob's Room:
      "Oh, a huge crab," Jacob murmured—and begins his journey on weakly legs on the sandy bottom.
Derived terms

Etymology 2

From Middle English weykly, equivalent to weak +‎ -ly. Compare Old High German weihlīcho (“weakly”), Middle English wocliche, wokli, wacliche (both from Proto-Germanic *waikalīkō).

Adverb

weakly (comparative more weakly, superlative most weakly)

  1. With little strength or force.
Derived terms
Translations
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