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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
frail
adjective
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADVERB
mentally
▪ Constipation is uncomfortable, it may cause incontinence, it may cause confusion in some one who is mentally frail.
▪ In the process, it discovered such homes often provided better care for seriously mentally frail elderly people than local authority accommodation.
▪ Long-stay care in hospitals is provided for the physically or mentally frail elderly.
physically
▪ He was physically frail, but mentally clear.
so
▪ He looked so frail as I watched Gavin help him out of the car, followed by the cat basket.
▪ Miss Tish had grown so frail, weakened in mind and spirit.
▪ The Frasque, however, are not so frail.
▪ She was covered with a blanket, so frail that she scarcely formed a mound.
▪ She was so tiny and so frail, and her eyes saw something that was visible to no one else.
▪ He appeared so frail that people taking communion were moved to sympathy.
▪ Flesh is so frail - except yours, Joe!
too
▪ The great man himself is now 95 and too frail for any involvement.
▪ With a longer life span, a lot of people are just becoming too frail to take care of themselves.
▪ It looked too frail for his hand.
▪ She got too frail to take care of him at home, and he was put in a nursing home.
▪ A bit too frail and woolly for the rough and tumble of ordinary practice.
very
▪ For a very frail person, coming in to assist with eating tea once a week might be a family contribution.
▪ Hilbert would be seventy the following year and Lewis said to his wife that his uncle was beginning to look very frail.
▪ Whether that holds true for very frail old people is doubtful as Wenger herself recognises.
▪ She is very frail and beautiful and both were wildly enthusiastic.
■ NOUN
body
▪ But she decided Daniel's frail body would not stand up to the painful general anaesthetics and blocked the treatment.
▪ She smiled and went right on believing in herself and in her frail body.
▪ Even females suffering from anorexia nervosa tend to view their thin, frail bodies as fat and unsightly.
health
▪ His age and frail health should not be used as an excuse to allow him to evade trial.
▪ Even had my grandparents wanted to, they could not have traveled because of their frail health.
people
▪ There are exercises which even frail people can do.
▪ Hiving off frail people to a fourth age is a rejection.
▪ And the revolution in the structure of services and management meant elderly frail people found it increasingly difficult to assert their rights.
▪ Increasingly, negative attitudes are towards older, frailer people, who are now the main victims of ageism.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ a frail 85-year-old lady
▪ A fierce storm engulfed the frail ship.
▪ She sat up a little straighter, raising her frail body in the bed.
▪ Walter looked extremely frail and old as he stepped out of the car.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ A fierce gale, huge waves, and a drenching rain bear down upon the frail whaling ship with all their might.
▪ He looked so frail as I watched Gavin help him out of the car, followed by the cat basket.
▪ The arm, uplifted in a cheery wave, is bony, frail, almost opalescent.
▪ The disabled and frail elderly will, of course, have special requirements and will need to select a home with a view to adaptation.
▪ The old woman was frail as eggshell and blind.
▪ They would grow into frail and colorless women.
▪ We're talking 80,000-plus, not a frail 930.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
frail

frail \frail\ (fr[=a]l), n. [OE. fraiel, fraile, OF. fraiel, freel, frael, fr. LL. fraellum.] A basket made of rushes, used chiefly for containing figs and raisins.

2. The quantity of raisins -- about thirty-two, fifty-six, or seventy-five pounds, -- contained in a frail.

3. A rush for weaving baskets.
--Johnson.

frail

frail \frail\, a. [Compar. frailer (fr[=a]l"[~e]r); superl. frailest.] [OE. frele, freile, OF. fraile, frele, F. fr[^e]le, fr. L. fragilis. See Fragile.]

  1. Easily broken; fragile; not firm or durable; liable to fail and perish; easily destroyed; not tenacious of life; weak; infirm.

    That I may know how frail I am.
    --Ps. xxxix. 4.

    An old bent man, worn and frail.
    --Lowell.

  2. Tender. [Obs.]

    Deep indignation and compassion frail.
    --Spenser.

  3. Liable to fall from virtue or be led into sin; not strong against temptation; weak in resolution; also, unchaste; -- often applied to fallen women.

    Man is frail, and prone to evil.
    --Jer. Taylor.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
frail

mid-14c., "morally weak," from Old French fraile, frele "weak, frail, sickly, infirm" (12c., Modern French frêle), from Latin fragilis "easily broken" (see fragility). It is the Frenchified form of fragile. Sense of "easily destroyed, liable to break" in English is from late 14c. The U.S. slang noun meaning "a woman" is attested from 1908; perhaps with awareness of Shakespeare's "Frailty, thy name is woman."

Wiktionary
frail
  1. 1 Easily break; mentally or physically fragile; not firm or durable; liable to fail and perish; easily destroyed; not tenacious of life; weak; infirm. 2 Liable to fall from virtue or be led into sin; not strong against temptation; weak in resolution; unchaste. n. 1 A basket made of rushes, used chiefly for containing figs and raisins. 2 The quantity of raisins contained in a frail. 3 A rush for weaving baskets. 4 (context dated slang English) A girl. v

  2. To play a stringed instrument, usually a banjo, by picking with the back of a fingernail.

WordNet
frail
  1. adj. physically weak; "an invalid's frail body" [ant: robust]

  2. having the attributes of man as opposed to e.g. divine beings; "I'm only human"; "frail humanity" [syn: fallible, imperfect, weak]

  3. easily broken or damaged or destroyed; "a kite too delicate to fly safely"; "fragile porcelain plates"; "fragile old bones"; "a frail craft" [syn: delicate, fragile]

  4. n. the weight of a frail (basket) full of raisins or figs; between 50 and 75 pounds

  5. a basket for holding dried fruit (especially raisins or figs)

Wikipedia
Frail (Maria Solheim album)

Frail is an album by Norwegian singer-songwriter Maria Solheim released in 2004 by Kirkelig Kulturverksted (FXCD 278).

Frail (song)

"Frail" is a song written and performed by Christian alternative folk rock group Jars of Clay. It has appeared on many recordings by the group and lends its name to the group's debut demo release, Frail, from 1994. The song has been released on four of the group's recordings; however, it has never been released as a single.

Frail

Frail may refer to:

  • Frail (Maria Solheim album), a 2004 album by Norwegian artist Maria Solheim
  • Frail (Jars of Clay album), a 1994 demo album by Christian rock band Jars of Clay
  • "Frail" (song), a 1987 song by Jars of Clay

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.