Sickly vs Weak - What's the difference?
sickly | weak | Related terms |
Frequently ill; often in poor health; given to becoming ill.
Having the appearance of sickness or ill health; appearing ill, infirm or unhealthy; pale.
* Dryden
Weak; faint; suggesting unhappiness.
Somewhat sick; disposed to illness; attended with disease.
* Shakespeare
Tending to produce disease.
Tending to produce nausea; sickening.
To make sickly.
* Shakespeare
* 1840 , S. M. Heaton, George Heaton, Thoughts on the Litany, by a naval officer's orphan daughter (page 58)
* 1871 , Gail Hamilton, Country living and country thinking (page 109)
In a sick manner.
* 2010 , Rowan Somerville, The End of Sleep (page 66)
Lacking in force (usually strength) or ability.
* Shakespeare
* Dryden
Unable to sustain a great weight, pressure, or strain.
Unable to withstand temptation, urgency, persuasion, etc.; easily impressed, moved, or overcome; accessible; vulnerable.
* Joseph Addison, The Fair Petinent Act I, scene I:
Dilute, lacking in taste or potency.
*
, title=The Mirror and the Lamp
, chapter=2 (grammar) Displaying a particular kind of inflection, including:
# (Germanic languages, of verbs) Regular in inflection, lacking vowel changes and having a past tense with -d- or -t-.
# (Germanic languages, of nouns) Showing less distinct grammatical endings.
# (Germanic languages, of adjectives) Definite in meaning, often used with a definite article or similar word.
(physics) One of the four fundamental forces associated with nuclear decay.
(slang) Bad or uncool.
(mathematics, logic) Having a narrow range of logical consequences; narrowly applicable. (Often contrasted with a statement which implies it.)
Resulting from, or indicating, lack of judgment, discernment, or firmness; unwise; hence, foolish.
* Milton
Not having power to convince; not supported by force of reason or truth; unsustained.
* Milton
Lacking in vigour or expression.
Not prevalent or effective, or not felt to be prevalent; not potent; feeble.
* Shakespeare
(stock exchange) Tending towards lower prices.
Sickly is a related term of weak.
As adjectives the difference between sickly and weak
is that sickly is frequently ill; often in poor health; given to becoming ill while weak is lacking in force (usually strength) or ability.As a verb sickly
is to make sickly.As an adverb sickly
is in a sick manner.sickly
English
Adjective
(er)- a sickly child
- a sickly plant
- The moon grows sickly at the sight of day.
- a sickly smile
- This physic but prolongs thy sickly days.
- a sickly''' autumn; a '''sickly climate
- (Cowper)
- a sickly''' smell; '''sickly sentimentality
Verb
- Sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought.
- He evidently thinks the sweet little innocents never heard or thought of such a thing before, and would go on burying their curly heads in books, and sicklying their rosy faces with "the pale cast of thought" till the end of time
Adverb
(en adverb)- The creaseless horizontal face of the giant smiled sickly , leering.
weak
English
Adjective
(er)- a poor, infirm, weak , and despised old man
- weak with hunger, mad with love
- a weak''' timber; a '''weak rope
- weak''' resolutions; '''weak virtue
- Guard thy heart / On this weak side, where most our nature fails.
citation, passage=That the young Mr. Churchills liked—but they did not like him coming round of an evening and drinking weak whisky-and-water while he held forth on railway debentures and corporation loans. Mr. Barrett, however, by fawning and flattery, seemed to be able to make not only Mrs. Churchill but everyone else do what he desired.}}
- If evil thence ensue, / She first his weak indulgence will accuse.
- The prosecution advanced a weak case.
- convinced of his weak arguing
- a weak''' sentence; a '''weak style
- weak prayers
- a weak market
