FromMiddle Englishfrele,fraill, fromOld Frenchfraile, fromLatinfragilis. Cognate tofraction,fracture, anddoublet offragile.
frail (comparativefrailer,superlativefrailest)
- Easilybroken physically; notfirm ordurable; liable tofail andperish.
c.1587–1588, [Christopher Marlowe],Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published1592,→OCLC; reprinted asTamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire, London: Scolar Press,1973,→ISBN,Act I, scene i:Returne with ſpeed, time paſſeth ſwift away,
Our life isfraile, and we may dye to day.
1831, John James Audubon,Ornithological Biography: Volume 1: Blue-grey Fly-catcher:Its nest is composed of thefrailest materials, and is light and small in proportion to the size of the bird
- Weak;infirm.
1993, John Banville,Ghosts:Frail smoke of morning in the air and a sort of muffled hum that is not sound but is not silence either.
1922, Isaac Rosenberg,Dawn:O as the soft and frail lights break upon your eyelids
- (medicine) In an infirm state leading one to be easily subject to disease or other health problems, especially regarding theelderly.
- Mentallyfragile.
- Liable to fall fromvirtue or be led intosin; not strong againsttemptation; weak inresolution;unchaste.
easily broken physically
- Bulgarian:крехък (bg)(krehǎk),чуплив (bg)(čupliv)
- Estonian:habras
- Finnish:hauras (fi),heiveröinen (fi)
- German:gebrechlich (de),schwach (de)
- Ingrian:rappia,habras
- Maori:kōpīpī,kopī,makuhane(Of ropes, cords, fibres)
- Polish:wątły (pl),arcydelikatny
- Portuguese:frágil (pt),débil (pt),delicado (pt)
- Russian:ло́мкий (ru)(lómkij),непро́чный (ru)(nepróčnyj),хру́пкий (ru)(xrúpkij)
- Serbo-Croatian:krhak (sh) m,loman (sh) m
- Spanish:frágil (es),débil (es),delicado (es)
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liable to fall from virtue
Translations to be checked
frail (pluralfrails)
- (dated, slang) Agirl.
1931,Cab Calloway,Irving Mills,Minnie the Moocher:She was the roughest, toughestfrail, but Minnie had a heart as big as a whale.
1934,F[rancis] Scott Fitzgerald,Tender is the Night: A Romance, New York, N.Y.:Charles Scribner’s Sons,→OCLC; republished as chapter X, inMalcolm Cowley, editor,Tender is the Night: A Romance[...] With the Author’s Final Revisions, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons,1951,→OCLC,book IV (Escape: 1925–1929),page238:There were five people in the Quirinal bar after dinner, a high-class Italianfrail who sat on a stool making persistent conversation against the bartender's bored: “Si … Si … Si,” a light, snobbish Egyptian who was lonely but chary of the woman, and the two Americans.
1939,Raymond Chandler,The Big Sleep, Penguin, published2011, page148:‘She's pickin' 'em tonight, right on the nose,’ he said. ‘That tall black-headedfrail.’
1941, Preston Sturges, “Sullivan's Travels”, inFive Screenplays,→ISBN, page77:Sullivan, the girl and the butler get to the ground. The girl wears a turtle-neck sweater, a cap slightly sideways, a torn coat, turned-up pants and sneakers.
SULLIVAN Why don't you go back with the car... You look about as much like a boy asMae West.
THE GIRL All right, they'll think I'm yourfrail.
frail (third-person singular simple presentfrails,present participlefrailing,simple past and past participlefrailed)
- To play a stringed instrument, usually abanjo, by picking with the back of afingernail.
FromMiddle Englishfrayel, fromOld Frenchfrael,fraiel, of unknown origin; possibly a dissimilatory variant offlael,flaiel(“flail”).
frail (pluralfrails)
- Abasket made ofrushes, used chiefly to holdfigs andraisins.
- Thequantity offruit or otheritems contained in a frail.
- A rush forweaving baskets.
(Thisetymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at theEtymology scriptorium.)
frail (pluralfrails)
- Synonym offarasola(“old unit of weight”)
frail (pluralfrails)
- (England, dialectal, obsolete)Synonym offlail.
1948, C. Henry Warren,The English Counties, Essex: Odhams, page170:The scythe, the sickle and the flail (or "frail", is it is invariably called) - these should surely be incorporated in the county arms, for on their use much of the prosperity of Essex has always rested until now.
