Frail

How to spell frail

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce frail

What does frail mean?

1. adjectiveWeak and delicate, easily harmed or broken, often because of age or illness.

Frail in a sentence

• The frail elderly man needed help climbing the stairs.

• Recovery left her too frail to return to work straight away.

Where does frail come from?

Language of origin: Latin

Frail came into English in the 1300s through Old French, where it appeared as 'fraile' or 'frele'. The ultimate source is the Latin adjective 'fragilis', meaning 'easily broken', which was built on the verb 'frangere', 'to break'. Over time the literal sense of something physically breakable softened into the idea of weakness in body or health, which is the dominant meaning today. The very same Latin root sits inside the more learned doublet 'fragile', so frail and fragile are essentially the same word arriving by two different routes: frail came worn down through French speech, while fragile was borrowed later and more directly from the Latin. Remembering that shared 'break' origin helps fix the 'ai' spelling, which mirrors the French vowel rather than a plain 'ay'.

How the word is built

• frail (from Latin fragilis: easily broken)