Etymograph

English

weakly

Weakly comes from Old English wāclīċ ‘feeble, poor, paltry’, and goes back to Proto-Germanic *waikalīkaz.

  1. Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*waikalīkaz1reconstructed
  2. Old Englishc. 450–1150wāclīċ2‘feeble, poor, paltry’
  3. Old Englishc. 450–1150wāclīċe3
  4. Englishearliest quotation 1885weakly3

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

  1. 1 Wiktionary, Old English waclic
  2. 2 Wiktionary, Old English waclice
  3. 3 Wiktionary, English weakly
  4. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1885, Sir Richard Burton, The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night: “I lay in weakly case and confined to my…”.

Lineage

  1. Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*waikalīkazWiktionary, Old English waclicreconstructed
  2. Old Englishc. 450–1150wāclīċWiktionary, Old English waclice‘feeble, poor, paltry’
  3. Old Englishc. 450–1150wāclīċeWiktionary, English weakly
  4. Englishearliest quotation 1885weaklyWiktionary, English weakly. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1885, Sir Richard Burton, The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night: “I lay in weakly case and confined to my…”

Formed from weak + -ly

Proto-Indo-European *h₃weyg- ‘to start moving’

…

Proto-Germanic *wīkwaną ‘to yield, cease, fold’

Proto-Germanic *waikwaz ‘weak, soft, pliable’

Old Norse veikr ‘pliant; weak’

Middle English waik

English weak

Every English word from Proto-Germanic *waikalīkaz

Another origin of weakly

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*weyk-‘to bend, wind’reconstructed
  2. Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*waikwaz‘weak, soft, pliable’reconstructed
  3. Old Norsec. 800–1350veikr‘pliant’
  4. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500weyk‘weak’
  5. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500weykly‘without strength or force’
  6. Englishtodayweakly

Today it means

adj Frail, sickly or of a delicate constitution; weak.

Sources

Sources: Wiktionary, “weakly”; the older steps come from the Wiktionary entries for Old English waclic, Old English waclice. 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-Germanic *waikalīkaz / weakly

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