frailty

Prone to breaking

Frailty is the quality of being frail—weak, delicate, or easily broken.

Physical frailty comes with age or illness: the frailty of her ninety-year-old grandmother.

Moral frailty is susceptibility to temptation or error: human frailty.

The word often carries a note of sympathy rather than judgment, acknowledging weakness as part of the human condition.

physical

infirmity

Weakness from illness or age

debilityImpaired strength or vitality
feeblenessLack of strength
weaknessDeficiency in force

delicacy · enervation · decrepitude · shakiness · unsteadiness · trembling · tottering · faltering · wasting · atrophy

moral

weakness

Deficiency in force

fallibilityLiability to err
imperfectionFault or shortcoming
temptationUrge toward the unwise

sin · vice · susceptibility · corruptibility · waywardness · failing · shortcoming · foible · fault · flaw

aging

senescence

Gradual functional decline with age

elderlyAdvanced in age
geriatricRelating to elderly care
declineDecrease or refuse

deterioration · longevity · dementia · osteoporosis · arthritis · gerontology · hospice · incontinence · presbyopia · cognitive decline

vulnerability

susceptibility

Liability to influence

defenselessnessState of being unprotected
exposureState of being unprotected
helplessnessLacking ability to cope

precariousness · endangerment · risk · insecurity · sensitivity · openness · tenderness · rawness · breakability · penetrability

mortality

transience

Brevity of existence

impermanenceQuality of not lasting
ephemeralityCondition of being brief
finitudeState of being bounded

vulnerability · perishability · brevity · fleetingness · temporariness · death · dying · terminal · moribund · deathbed

Categories

illnessdisease, sickness, illness, ailment, disorder
flawsfaults, defect, flaw, blemish, flaws
health risksobesity, diabetes, smoking, hypertension, air pollution
human flawsmistake, error, flaw, fault, failing
impairmentsimpairment, disability, paralysis, incapacity, blindness
physical conditionsillness, disease, sickness, injury, disability

Opposites

physical constitution

frailtystrength

Power to exert force

robustness · sturdiness · vigor · durability · indestructibility

moral character

frailtyvirtue

Moral goodness or merit

integrity · rectitude · moral strength · righteousness · probity

psychological resilience

frailtyfortitude

Enduring courage under pain

mettle · resoluteness · grit · resolve · moxie

Phrases

human frailtySusceptibility of mortal beings
old and frail

Family

frail, frailties, frailness, frailer, frailest

Familiarity: Top 50,000
Profile: Used worldwide · Timeless · Abstract · Negative · Everyday, not technical · Rated G