weakly

• IPA^(key): /ˈwiːkli/
• Rhymes: -iːk.li
• Homophone: weekly

From weak +‎ -ly; compare Old English wāclīċ (“weak; ignoble; mean”), and Old Norse veikligr (“weakly; sick”); both ultimately from Proto-Germanic *waikalīkaz (“weakly; weak”).

weakly (comparative weaklier, superlative weakliest)

1. Frail, sickly or of a delicate constitution; weak.
   • 1885, I lay in weakly case and confined to my bed for four months before I was able to rise and health returned to me. — Sir Richard Burton, The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Night 18
   • 1889, I'd always been but weakly, / And my baby was just born; / A neighbour minded her by day, / I minded her till morn. — WB Yeats, ‘The Ballad of Moll Magee’
   • 1922, Virginia Woolf, Jacob's Room Chapter 1

     "Oh, a huge crab," Jacob murmured—and begins his journey on weakly legs on the sandy bottom.

From Middle English weykly, equivalent to weak +‎ -ly. Compare Old High German weihlīcho (“weakly”), Middle English wocliche, wokli, wacliche (both from Proto-Germanic *waikalīkō).

weakly (comparative more weakly, superlative most weakly)

1. With little strength or force