Weaken

How to spell weaken

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce weaken

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does weaken mean?

1. verbTo make something less strong, or to become less strong, in force, resolve, or physical condition.

Weaken in a sentence

• Missing several payments can weaken your credit rating.

• The long illness began to weaken his grip and his stamina.

Where does weaken come from?

Language of origin: Old Norse

This word is built from the adjective 'weak' plus the verb-forming ending '-en', which does the job of turning a quality into an action of making or becoming, exactly as it does in 'harden', 'soften', and 'strengthen'. The root 'weak' came into English from Old Norse 'veikr', meaning 'pliant' or 'easily bent', brought by Norse settlers and gradually replacing the related native Old English form. The original sense pictured something that yields or gives way rather than something merely feeble, and that idea of bending under pressure still echoes in the modern meaning. The combined form 'weaken' appears in English from around the late 1500s, once the productive '-en' suffix was freely attached to such adjectives. Because the ending is simply '-en' and never '-on', the spelling trap is small but real: it follows the same pattern as the cluster of everyday verbs it sits beside.

How the word is built

• weak (feeble, lacking strength)
• -en (verb-forming suffix meaning 'to make or become')