Adjective: frail
Comparison Forms
Synthetic
| Comparative | frailer |
| Superlative | frailest |
Perifrastic
Sample Sentences
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Returne with ſpeed, time paſſeth ſwift away,
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Our life is fraile, and we may dye to day. [c. 1587–1588 (date written), [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire; London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act I, scene i:]
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Its nest is composed of the frailest materials, and is light and small in proportion to the size of the bird [1831, John James Audubon, Ornithological Biography: Volume 1: Blue-grey Fly-catcher:]
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Frail smoke of morning in the air and a sort of muffled hum that is not sound but is not silence either. [1993, John Banville, Ghosts:]
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O as the soft and frail lights break upon your eyelids [1922, Isaac Rosenberg, Dawn:]
Adjectives inflected like frail
sallow,
smooth,
slight,
sleigh,
sordid,
somber,
shweet,
shrill,
shrewd,
yellow,
yaller,
hard knock,
DRY,
Greek,
cut short,
unquiet,
unclean,
indiscreet,
chipper,
straicht, etc. (List truncated at 20 adjectives)
Etymology
From Middle English frele, fraill, from Old French fraile, from Latin fragilis. Cognate to fraction, fracture, and doublet of fragile. See: Latin Adjectives '
fragilis'.