Weak and unable to succeed outright

Usage examples of frail.

Viviana possessed a certain acuity of mind, then, despite her frail emotional state.

He thought angrily of the pleasure he would have at seeing the fright of that small and frail but proud man when covered by his pistol, and then he felt with surprise that of all the men he knew there was none he would so much like to have for a friend as that very adjutant whom he so hated.

But despite his acquittal the Latvian remained a dead Latvian and weighed on his mind like a ton of bricks, although he was said to have been a frail little man, afflicted with a stomach ailment to boot.

It was a dangerous place to climb, for the ladder was auld and frail, and wanted ane or twa rounds.

Bonaparte As he with other figures foots his reel, Until he twitch him into his lonely grave: Also regard the frail ones that his flings Have made gyrate like animalcula In tepid pools.

The crowd arose and then knelt in a slow wave that followed the movement of the chair containing the frail old man in white who gestured his blessings to the people as the gold, black, purple, and red procession moved him slowly toward the throne.

Contemplating the ruin the Quman had made of Avaria, he looked as frail as a withered stick blown about in storm winds.

And, what though murdered and betrayed, bewept by all frail tender hearts for, Dane or Dubliner, sorrow for the dead is the only husband from whom they refuse to be divorced.

The faint and frail Cathedral chimes Spake time in music, and we heard The chafers rustling in the limes.

It was if he climbed those handholds he had envisioned, clambering from the pit toward the hope of light, driven by hope and fear together to ignore the pain and grip where no grip was possible, only the frail strength of himself and his own hope, which was no less fear.

Thelma whispered, gasping to catch her breath as another bout of coughing racked her frail frame.

She had thought doddery Guaram was the most ancient person she had known, but this wispy-haired stranger looked so frail he must be even older than Guaram.

A flock of dotterels bobbing, bowing, skipping, and shouldering one another may be merely practising some evolution with serious intent, though it is far more natural to conclude that the frail little birds are in holiday humour.

What words of moment were to have fallen from his lips were never spoken, as just then a young warrior, evidently sensing the trend of thought among the older men, leaped down from the steps of the rostrum, and striking the frail captive a powerful blow across the face, which felled her to the floor, placed his foot upon her prostrate form and turning toward the assembled council broke into peals of horrid, mirthless laughter.

From the frail, dreamy youth who showed such extraordinary guts when he had his fenestration operation, he has become an extremely competent, managerial sort of holy man with a talent for the ceremonial aspect of his services.