weakness
Americannoun
-
the state or quality of being weak; lack of strength, firmness, vigor, or the like; feebleness.
- Synonyms:
- fragility
- Antonyms:
- strength
-
an inadequate or defective quality, as in a person's character; slight fault or defect.
to show great sympathy for human weaknesses.
- Synonyms:
- flaw
-
a self-indulgent liking or special fondness, as for a particular thing.
I've always had a weakness for the opera.
-
an object of special desire; something very difficult to resist.
Chocolates were her weakness.
noun
-
the state or quality of being weak
-
a deficiency or failing, as in a person's character
-
a self-indulgent fondness or liking
a weakness for chocolates
Synonym Usage
See fault.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of weakness
First recorded in 1300–50; Middle English waikenes, weikenes. See weak, -ness
Explanation
The point where something fails to work properly or to hold up is its weakness. If a building crumbles in a storm, it's probably because of a weakness — a flaw or defect — in its structure. Weakness can indicate a physical weakness, like a chair with one wobbly leg, or flaw in an idea, like a plan for a lemonade stand that doesn't include any cups for serving the lemonade. People can show weakness too, when they are helpless to take action. The origin of weakness can be traced all the way back to its Proto-Indo-European root of weik, "to bend."
Vocabulary lists containing weakness
Florida's B.E.S.T. Common Suffixes: -ness
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Unit 1, Week 4
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The Suffix -ness, Part 1
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The Rams upgraded their most obvious weakness by trading for All-Pro cornerback Trent McDuffie and signing cornerback Jaylen Watson.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 23, 2026
IG analyst Fabien Yip said: "Unless paired with a genuine shift in BoJ policy, intervention will continue to function as a circuit-breaker rather than a cure for yen weakness."
From Barron's ● Jul. 23, 2026
Any comments on the yen’s weakness from Japanese government officials are also in focus.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 22, 2026
Unexplained weight loss, persistent tiredness, weakness, reduced appetite, nausea, or vomiting may indicate an underlying medical problem and warrant a conversation with a health care provider.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 22, 2026
My shoulders hunch down as I feel weakness on me.
From "The Knife of Never Letting Go" by Patrick Ness
“Maneuver warfare hinges on the ability to exploit an adversary’s weaknesses through principles like speed, agility, reach, and decisive mass,” Anduril said in a statement.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 21, 2026
This isn’t a unique insight; lawmakers of both parties have flagged those weaknesses for years.
From Slate ● Jul. 17, 2026
The company's new GPT-5.6 offerings and other cutting-edge AI models, including Anthropic's Mythos series, have drawn concern over their supposedly unprecedented ability to identify weaknesses in code that hackers can exploit.
From Barron's ● Jul. 8, 2026
Current chemical products on the market use a mix of ingredients to achieve broad-spectrum coverage, but the formulations have weaknesses and require frequent reapplication.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 3, 2026
I played more that summer than I had for a while and began to see weaknesses in my game.
From "Bad Boy" by Walter Dean Myers
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.