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INFIRMITY
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I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
The state of being weak in health or body (especially from old age)
Synonyms:
debility; feebleness; frailness; frailty; infirmity; valetudinarianism
Classified under:
Nouns denoting stable states of affairs
Hypernyms ("infirmity" is a kind of...):
softness; unfitness (poor physical condition; being out of shape or out of condition (as from a life of ease and luxury))
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "infirmity"):
asthenia; astheny (an abnormal loss of strength)
cachexia; cachexy; wasting (any general reduction in vitality and strength of body and mind resulting from a debilitating chronic disease)
Derivation:
infirm (lacking bodily or muscular strength or vitality)
Context examples:
But I must freely confess, that the many virtues of those excellent quadrupeds, placed in opposite view to human corruptions, had so far opened my eyes and enlarged my understanding, that I began to view the actions and passions of man in a very different light, and to think the honour of my own kind not worth managing; which, besides, it was impossible for me to do, before a person of so acute a judgment as my master, who daily convinced me of a thousand faults in myself, whereof I had not the least perception before, and which, with us, would never be numbered even among human infirmities.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
Infirmity! said Elinor, do you call Colonel Brandon infirm?
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
This illustrious person had very usefully employed his studies, in finding out effectual remedies for all diseases and corruptions to which the several kinds of public administration are subject, by the vices or infirmities of those who govern, as well as by the licentiousness of those who are to obey.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
I have indeed observed the same disposition among most of the mathematicians I have known in Europe, although I could never discover the least analogy between the two sciences; unless those people suppose, that because the smallest circle has as many degrees as the largest, therefore the regulation and management of the world require no more abilities than the handling and turning of a globe; but I rather take this quality to spring from a very common infirmity of human nature, inclining us to be most curious and conceited in matters where we have least concern, and for which we are least adapted by study or nature.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
He said, “they commonly acted like mortals till about thirty years old; after which, by degrees, they grew melancholy and dejected, increasing in both till they came to fourscore. This he learned from their own confession: for otherwise, there not being above two or three of that species born in an age, they were too few to form a general observation by. When they came to fourscore years, which is reckoned the extremity of living in this country, they had not only all the follies and infirmities of other old men, but many more which arose from the dreadful prospect of never dying. They were not only opinionative, peevish, covetous, morose, vain, talkative, but incapable of friendship, and dead to all natural affection, which never descended below their grandchildren. Envy and impotent desires are their prevailing passions. But those objects against which their envy seems principally directed, are the vices of the younger sort and the deaths of the old. By reflecting on the former, they find themselves cut off from all possibility of pleasure; and whenever they see a funeral, they lament and repine that others have gone to a harbour of rest to which they themselves never can hope to arrive. They have no remembrance of anything but what they learned and observed in their youth and middle-age, and even that is very imperfect; and for the truth or particulars of any fact, it is safer to depend on common tradition, than upon their best recollections. The least miserable among them appear to be those who turn to dotage, and entirely lose their memories; these meet with more pity and assistance, because they want many bad qualities which abound in others.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
