weakly
adverb · adjective
Simple meaning
With little strength or force.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
weekleeSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈwikli
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
adverb
With little strength or force.
adjective
Frail, sickly or of a delicate constitution; weak.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B2 · Upper Intermediate (estimated)
- Frequency
- Uncommon
- Typical Use
- Neutral / general English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: With little strength or force.
Used this way, weakly is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use weakly
- “Weakly agreed to a compromise.”adverb
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
Wanting in physical strength.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
A flaw or weak point.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A hypothetical subatomic particle of large mass that interacts weakly with ordinary matter through gravitation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.