Word Pronunciation & Dictionary

forcible-feeble

Word Rarity Rare

Frequency: 2.67 in modern English

Syllables: forcible-fee-ble
IPA

26

Scrabble Score

14

Letters

3

Syllables

8

Unique Chars

Meaning

adj

Having a vigorous appearance, but in reality, weak or insipid.

Dated

Example Sentences

"He would purge his book of much offensive matter, if he struck out epithets which are in the bad taste of the forcible-feeble school."
"But [allegory] is apt to spoil two good things—a story and a moral, a meaning and a form; and the taste for it is responsible for a large part of the forcible feeble writing that has been inflicted on the world."
"Skin-the-Goat, assuming he was he, evidently with an axe to grind, was airing his grievances in a forcible-feeble philippic anent the natural resources of Ireland or something of that sort which he described in his lengthy dissertation as the richest country bar none on the face of God's earth […]"

Etymology

From Francis Feeble, a character in William Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part 2, to whom Falstaff derisively applies the epithet forcible.

Usage

Dated

Inflected Forms

more forcible-feeble (comparative) most forcible-feeble (superlative)

Questions

What does forcible-feeble mean?: Having a vigorous appearance, but in reality, weak or insipid.
Where does forcible-feeble come from?: From Francis Feeble, a character in William Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part 2, to whom Falstaff derisively applies the epithet forcible.

How to pronounce forcible-feeble

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