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Puny vs Frail - What's the difference?

puny | frail |

As nouns the difference between puny and frail

is that puny is (obsolete) a new pupil at a school etc; a junior student while frail is a basket made of rushes, used chiefly for containing figs and raisins.

As adjectives the difference between puny and frail

is that puny is of inferior size, strength or significance while frail is easily broken; mentally or physically fragile; not firm or durable; liable to fail and perish; easily destroyed; not tenacious of life; weak; infirm.

As a verb frail is

to play a stringed instrument, usually a banjo, by picking with the back of a fingernail.

puny

English

Noun

(punies)
  • (obsolete) A new pupil at a school etc.; a junior student.
  • (obsolete) A younger person.
  • *, II.12:
    • a law that the eldest or first borne child shall succeed and inherit all: where nothing at all is reserved for Punies , but obedience.
  • (obsolete) A beginner, a novice.
    • (Fuller)
  • (archaic) An inferior person; a subordinate.

    • Adjective

    (er)
  • Of inferior size, strength or significance.
  • * Shakespeare
    • A puny subject strikes at thy great glory.
  • * Keble
    • Breezes laugh to scorn our puny speed.

    Synonyms

    * See also

    See also

    * punny – relating to a pun ----

    frail

    English

    Adjective

    (er)
  • Easily broken; mentally or physically fragile; not firm or durable; liable to fail and perish; easily destroyed; not tenacious of life; weak; infirm.
  • Liable to fall from virtue or be led into sin; not strong against temptation; weak in resolution; unchaste.

    • Related terms

    * fractal * fraction * fractional * fracture * fragile * fragility * frailly * frailness * frailty

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A basket made of rushes, used chiefly for containing figs and raisins.
  • The quantity of raisins contained in a frail.
  • A rush for weaving baskets.
  • (dated, slang) A girl.
  • * 1931 , (Cab Calloway) / (Irving Mills), ‘Minnie the Moocher’:
    • She was the roughest, toughest frail , but Minnie had a heart as big as a whale.
  • * 1933 , , , edition 1, Book 2, Chapter XXII:
    • There were five people in the Quirinal bar after dinner, a high-class Italian frail who sat on a stool making persistent conversation against the bartender's bored: “Si ... Si ... Si,” a light, snobbish Egyptian who was lonely but chary of the woman, and the two Americans.
  • * 1939 , (Raymond Chandler), The Big Sleep , Penguin 2011, p. 148:
    • ‘She's pickin' 'em tonight, right on the nose,’ he said. ‘That tall black-headed frail .’
  • * 1941 , Preston Sturges, '', published in ''Five Screenplays , ISBN 0-520-05442-4, page 77:
    • Sullivan, the girl and the butler get to the ground. The girl wears a turtle-neck sweater, a cap slightly sideways, a torn coat, turned-up pants and sneakers.
    SULLIVAN Why don't you go back with the car... You look about as much like a boy as .
    THE GIRL All right, they'll think I'm your frail .

    References

    *

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To play a stringed instrument, usually a banjo, by picking with the back of a fingernail.

    • Anagrams

    *