debility
English edit
Etymology edit
From Middle English debylite, from Old French debilité (French débilité), from Latin dēbilitās (“weakness”), from dēbilis (“weak”), from dē- + habilis (“able”).
Pronunciation edit
Noun edit
debility (countable and uncountable, plural debilities)
- A state of physical or mental weakness.
- 1818, [Mary Shelley], Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), London: […] [Macdonald and Son] for Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, & Jones, →OCLC:
- As I was in a state of extreme debility, I resolved to sail directly towards the town, as a place where I could most easily procure nourishment.
[…]
I was ready to sink from fatigue and hunger, but being surrounded by a crowd, I thought it politic to rouse all my strength, that no physical debility might be construed into apprehension or conscious guilt.
- 1886, Robert Louis Stephenson, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde:
- I was struck besides with the shocking expression of his face, with his remarkable combination of great muscular activity and great apparent debility of constitution
Related terms edit
Translations edit
state of weakness
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Further reading edit
- “debility”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
- “debility”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.