Weakness

How to spell weakness

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce weakness

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does weakness mean?

1. nounThe state of lacking physical, moral, or structural strength, or a particular fault or shortcoming.
2. nounA self-indulgent fondness for something one finds hard to resist.

Weakness in a sentence

• After the illness, a lingering weakness in her legs made the stairs difficult.

• He has a real weakness for dark chocolate and keeps a stash in his desk.

• The engineer found a structural weakness in the bridge supports.

• Her one weakness is buying shoes she does not need.

Where does weakness come from?

Language of origin: Old Norse

The core word 'weak' comes from the Old Norse 'veikr', meaning pliant or easily bent, which Norse settlers brought to England and which gradually replaced the closely related native Old English 'wac' (soft, pliant). Both go back to a common Proto-Germanic root meaning 'to yield' or 'to give way', the same idea that lies behind 'weaken' and even the verb 'to wick'. The ending '-ness' is a thoroughly native Old English suffix used to turn an adjective into an abstract noun naming a state or quality, exactly as in 'kindness' and 'darkness'. So 'weakness' literally means 'the state of being weak', a sense recorded in English well before 1200. From the plain idea of lacking physical strength it broadened to mean a fault or failing, and then a fond, slightly indulgent liking that one cannot resist. The spelling keeps the 'ea' of 'weak' and the double-consonant boundary of 'weak' plus 'ness', so the 'kn' simply sits side by side with no letters lost.

How the word is built

• weak (lacking strength)
• -ness (suffix forming abstract nouns)