Etymograph

English

feebless

Feebless comes from Old French feblesce ‘weakness’, from feble ‘feeble’, and ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *bʰleh₁- ‘to bleat, cry’.

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*bʰleh₁-1‘to bleat, cry’reconstructed
  2. Proto-Italicc. 1500–700 BCE*flēō1‘to weep, cry’reconstructed
  3. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEfleō2‘to weep’
  4. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEflēbilis3‘tearful, mournful, lamentable’
  5. Vulgar Latinc. 100–700 CE*fēbelis3reconstructed
  6. Old Frenchc. 842–1400feble4‘feeble’
  7. Old Frenchc. 842–1400feblesce4‘weakness’
  8. Englishearliest quotation 1596feebless4

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

  1. 1 Wiktionary, Latin fleo
  2. 2 Wiktionary, Latin flebilis
  3. 3 Wiktionary, Old French feble
  4. 4 Wiktionary, English feebless
  5. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1596, Edmund Spenser, Book IV, Canto VIII: “They passing forth kept on their readie way, /…”.

Lineage

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*bʰleh₁-Wiktionary, Latin fleo‘to bleat, cry’reconstructed
  2. Proto-Italicc. 1500–700 BCE*flēōWiktionary, Latin fleo‘to weep, cry’reconstructed
  3. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEfleōWiktionary, Latin flebilis‘to weep’
  4. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEflēbilisWiktionary, Old French feble‘tearful, mournful, lamentable’
  5. Vulgar Latinc. 100–700 CE*fēbelisWiktionary, Old French feblereconstructed
  6. Old Frenchc. 842–1400febleWiktionary, English feebless‘feeble’
  7. Old Frenchc. 842–1400feblesceWiktionary, English feebless‘weakness’
  8. Englishearliest quotation 1596feeblessWiktionary, English feebless. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1596, Edmund Spenser, Book IV, Canto VIII: “They passing forth kept on their readie way, /…”

Linked words

through Proto-Indo-European *bʰleh₁- ‘to bleat, cry’

blow, inflation, blast, flavor, flux, fluent, bladder, bliss, confluence, fluency, inflate, fluvial, flatulence, conflate, blithely, blare, blather, bleat, 45 more

Today it means

noun Feebleness; weakness, infirmity.

Sources

Sources: Wiktionary, “feebless”; the older steps come from the Wiktionary entries for Latin fleo, Latin flebilis, Old French feble. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.

Etymograph / Proto-Indo-European *bʰleh₁- / feebless

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