Search the Dictionary

The broken state produced by decay and the infirmities of age; infirm old age.

Shattered; infirm. "A laurel grew, doddered with age." Dryden.

Honorably discharged from the performance of public duty on account of age, infirmity, or long and faithful services; -- said of an officer of a college or pastor of a church.

g short; a becoming deficient; failure; deficiency; imperfection; weakness; lapse; fault; infirmity; as, a mental failing. And ever in her mind she cas about For that unnoticed failing in herself. Tennyson.

Deficient in physical strenght; weak; infirm; debilitated. Carried all the feeble of them upon asses. 2 Chron. xxviii. 15.

The quality or condition of being feeble; debility; infirmity. That shakes for age and feebleness. Shak.

The officer in a religious house who had the care of the infirmary. [Obs.]

Infirm; unstable. "Firmless sands." Sylvester.

irm or durable; liable to fail and perish; easily destroyed; not tenacious of life; weak; infirm. That I may know how frail I am. Ps. xxxix. 4. An old bent man, worn and frail. Lowell.

Weakly; infirmly.

The condition quality of being frail, physically, mentally, or morally, frailness; infirmity; weakness of resolution; liableness to be deceived or seduced. God knows our frailty, [and] pities our weakness. Locke.

A building in which the sick, injured, or infirm are received and treated; a public or private institution founded for reception and cure, or for the refuge, of persons diseased in body or mind, or disabled, infirm, or dependent, and in which they are treated either at their own expense, or more often by charity in who…

hysical, intellectual, or moral; deficient in capacity; destitute of force; weak; feeble; infirm. There sat a certain man at Lystra, impotent inhis feet. Acts xiv. 8. O most lame and impotent conclusion! Shak. Not slow to hear, Nor impotent to save. Addison.

Capable of being transmitted from parent to child; as, inheritable qualities or infirmities.

A patient who receives lodging and food, as well as treatment, in a hospital or an infirmary; -- distinguished from outpatient.

A person who is weak and infirm; one who is disabled for active service; especially, one in chronic ill health.

The condition of an invalid; sickness; infirmity.

Want of health; infirmity. [Obs.] Sir W. Temple.

eviation from truth or rectitude. To guard against those lapses and failings to which our infirmities daily expose us. Rogers.

w-minded and immoral. Macaulay. All old religious jealousies were condemned as low-minded infirmities. Bancroft.