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xture, or constitution; softness; elegance; smoothness; tenderness; and hence, frailty or weakness; as, the delicacy of a fiber or a thread; delicacy of a hand or of the human form; delicacy of the skin; delicacy of frame.

Insanity; madness; esp. that form which consists in weakness or total loss of thought and reason; mental imbecility; idiocy.

To sink; to faint; to pine; to languish, with weakness, discouragement, love, etc. His heart died within, and he became as a stone. 1 Sam. xxv. 37. The young men acknowledged, in love letters, that they died for Rebecca. Tatler.

ation; want of union. Nothing was therefore to be left in all the subordinate members but weakness, disconnection, and confusion. Burke.

or disturbing the performance of the vital functions, and causing or threatening pain and weakness; malady; affection; illness; sickness; disorder; -- applied figuratively to the mind, to the moral character and habits, to institutions, the state, etc. Diseases desperate grown, By desperate appliances are relieved. Sha…

A dotard's weakness; dotage. [Obs.] Drayton.

Characteristic quality of a woman, such as softness, luxuriousness, delicacy, or weakness, which is unbecoming a man; womanish delicacy or softness; -- used reproachfully of men. Milton.

The act of depriving, or state of being deprived, of vigor or strength; unmanly weakness.

The act of weakening; enervation; weakness.

commodities in a warehouse, a picture in a gallery. Exhibiting a miserable example of the weakness of mind and body. Pope.

A failing 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.

Weakness or imbecility of mind; stupidity. Those many forms of popular fatuity. I Taylor.

A moral weakness; a failing; a weak point; a frailty. A disposition radically noble and generous, clouded and overshadowed by superficial foibles. De Quincey.

The state of being foolish; want of good sense; levity, weakness, or derangement of mind.

An act of folly or weakness; a foolish practice; something absurd or nonsensical. That Pythagoras, Plato, or Orpheus, believed in any of these fooleries, it can not be suspected. Sir W. Raleigh.

Such as a fool would do; proceeding from weakness of mind or silliness; exhibiting a want of judgment or discretion; as, a foolish act.

Weakness; feebleness. An appearance of delicacy, and even of fragility, is almost essential to it [beauty]. Burke.

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.

to hysteria; affected, or troubled, with hysterics; convulsive, fitful. With no hysteric weakness or feverish excitement, they preserved their peace and patience. Bancroft.

The quality of being imbecile; weakness; feebleness, esp. of mind. Cruelty . . . argues not only a depravedness of nature, but also a meanness of courage and imbecility of mind. Sir W. Temple.