weaksome

English

Etymology

From weak +‎ -some.

Adjective

weaksome (comparative more weaksome, superlative most weaksome)

1. Characterised or marked by weakness; feeble
   • 1861, Philip Thaxter: A Novel:

     My old mother is pretty weaksome, and can't do much besides get the victuals, so I have to look to all the geese and pigs and hens, when I or't to be 'tendin' to the cattle, and plowin' and farm-work.

   • 1884, Mr. Nobody - Volume 1:

     A beggar in course he is, poor brat, but, saving your worship's pardon, I don't see how he can be anything else — coming, as he did, by a wrong tack into the world, and taken up by a weaksome, cranky creature, as always lived more or less on charity.

   • 1899, Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, volume 166:

     “[...] And how shall the weaksome rise if they that loves 'em best deserts 'em ?”

   • 1972, Leslie Poles Hartley, The collections:

     'Are they both pub-crawlers?' asked Edwina, whose thoughts had gone back to times when pubs, if they then existed — and when did they not exist, in one form or another, since there were vases, bowls, jars, flagons, cups, however mutilated and weaksome, to suggest their existence—'one doesn't necessarily have to go to a pub to get a drink.

   • 2012, Alan MacDonald, Sir Bigwart: Knight of the Wonky Table:

     'Call that a bite? You is weaksome as a wormwiggler!' Grimbeard carried them over to the fireside, where he gave his brother's chair a savage kick.

Anagrams

• wakesome