Dictionary

feeblesome en · ADJ

Etymology

Etymology tree Anglo-Norman feblebor. Middle English feble English feeble Proto-Indo-European *sem- Proto-Indo-European *-os Proto-Indo-European *-ós Proto-Indo-European *-ós Proto-Indo-European *somHós Proto-Germanic *samaz Proto-Germanic *-samaz Proto-West Germanic *-sam Old English -sum Middle English -som English -some English feeblesome From feeble + -some.

Meanings

1. Characterised or marked by feebleness; weak or faint.
   • Your work is off-color, your liver is wrong— You know it – yet when he butts in, With a little sly jolly, somehow you brace up And scare up a feeblesome grin. 1903, The Anamosa Prison Press, volume 6:
   • It ain't no cinch play that this female's deef, neither; which it's allers plain she hears the most feeblesome yelp of that infant, all the way from the dance-hall to the O. K. House, an' that means across the camp complete. 1897, Alfred Henry Lewis, Wolfville:
   • And ef it hadn't 'a' been fur me and Doc Lew Lake and Jimmy Bagby and three-four others raisin' a feeblesome imitation of the Rebel Yell ez we went past, there'd 'a' been no tribute atall fur the man who marched away in '61 leadin' this town's fust company of volunteers, and come back in '65, a full brigadier bringin' whut wuz left [...] 1931, Hearst's International Combined with Cosmopolitan:

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