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# weakly

«weakly» in Mova's school dictionary: **without strength or energy: «he smiled weakly»** — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples.

### part of speech

adverb (weakly)

### meaning for a pupil

1) Weakly means without strength or energy: «he smiled weakly». [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/W/weakly/#m1)

2) Weakly means not strongly, only a little: «the light shone weakly». [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/W/weakly/#m2)

### sense in the lessons

In stories «weakly» shows that a character is tired, ill, frightened or not confident: «she laughed weakly», «he protested weakly». In science, a «weakly magnetic» material is only slightly attracted to a magnet; «a weakly acidic» liquid is a little acidic. Phrases: «smile weakly», «weakly argue».

### examples

- He smiled weakly from his hospital bed. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/W/weakly/#x1)
- The puppy wagged its tail weakly. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/W/weakly/#x2)
- The torch shone weakly — the batteries were low. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/W/weakly/#x3)
- «I'm fine,» she said weakly. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/W/weakly/#x4)
- The sun shone weakly through the clouds. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/W/weakly/#x5)
- The baby bird chirped weakly. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/W/weakly/#x6)
- Lemon juice is weakly acidic. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/W/weakly/#x7)
- Then he turned to Geppetto and cried out weakly: [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/W/weakly/#x8)

### note

From «weak» + -ly. Homophone trap: «weekly» (every week) sounds the same: «a weekly test» vs «she spoke weakly». Opposite: strongly.

### Trees and pragmatics

[Every meaning and example of «weakly» parsed by Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/W/weakly/), each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.