a. Having weak knees; chiefly fig. wanting in resolution or determination.
1870. Daily News, 16 Nov. The Prefects of the Republic … know how to keep down the malcontents and to enliven the weak-kneed.
1875. N. Amer. Rev., CXX. 208. Kitty Ellison and her weak-kneed lover, we find, are still objects of current allusion.
1891. Kipling, Light that Failed, xiv. (1900), 235. Suicide … would be … a weak-kneed confession of fear.
Hence Weak-kneedness.
1882. Standard, 19 Sept., 5/1. The peculiar awkward running gait of women … is due to a weak-kneedness characteristic of the sex.
1887. Sat. Rev., 10 Sept., 340/2. The weak-kneedness of the Irish landlords has had much to do with the triumph of anarchy.
