Forms: 4–5 fre(e)(l)l(e, (4 freile, 5 fraiel, frale, freall, freyle), 5–7 fraile, -yle, 6– frail. [ad. OF. fraile, frele (Fr. frêle) = It. fraile:—L. fragilis Fragile.]

1

  1.  Liable to break or be broken; easily crushed or destroyed.

2

1382.  Wyclif, Wisd. xiv. 1. An other thenkende to seilen … the tree berende hym, inwardli clepeth a more frele tree.

3

c. 1440.  Promp. Parv., 177/2. Freyl, and brokulle, or brytylle, fragilis.

4

1535.  Coverdale, Wisd. xv. 13. He yt of earth maketh frayle vessell and ymages, knoweth himself to offende aboue all other.

5

c. 1586.  C’tess Pembroke, Ps. xcii. 7.

            The wicked grow
  Like fraile, though flowry grasse:
And, falne, to wrack past help doe passe.

6

1600.  Fairfax, Tasso, VI. xlviii. Their armours forged were of mettall fraile.

7

1713.  Young, A Poem on the Last Day, II. 63.

          Thus a frail model of the work design’d
First takes a copy of the builder’s mind.

8

1812.  J. Wilson, Isle of Palms, II. 496.

        In that frail bark the Lovers sit,
With steadfast face and silent breath,
Following the guiding hope of life,
Yet reconciled to death.

9

1879.  Stainer, Music of Bible, 81–2. Two ancient Greek flutes, found in a tomb, are preserved in the British Museum. Their great age renders the wood from which they were made extremely frail, and any rough usage would probably reduce them to dust.

10

  b.  Of immaterial things, sometimes with conscious metaphor: Subject to casualties, liable to be suddenly shattered, transient.

11

c. 1450.  Life of St. Cuthbert (Surtees), 2481.

        Also he walde oft tymes declare
how freele is werldly welefare.

12

a. 1533.  Ld. Berners, Gold. Bk. M. Aurel. (1546), C ij b. It is no new thyng that men gape for hygh and frayle thynges.

13

1656.  Cowley, Pindar. Odes 2nd Olympique, vi.

              With a frail Good they wisely buy
The solid Purchase of Eternity.

14

1703.  Rowe, Ulyss., IV. i. 1523. Grasp thy frail Life, and break it like a Bubble.

15

1770.  Goldsm., Des. Vill., 291.

        But when those charms are past, for charms are frail,
When time advances, and when lovers fail,
She then shines forth, solicitous to bless,
In all the glaring impotence of dress.

16

1843.  J. Martineau, Chr. Life (1867), 295. When we suffer ourselves to seek a profounder but a frailer bliss.

17

  2.  Weak, subject to infirmities; wanting in power, easily overcome.

18

1382.  Wyclif, Rom. viii. 3. Þat was vnpossible to þe lawe, in what þing it was syk, or freel, by fleisch.

19

1398.  Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., V. lxii. (1495), 178. The flesshe … was freell and brotyll of mankynd.

20

c. 1450, trans. De Imitatione, I. xxii. 29. Al þe while þat we bere þis fraiel body, we can not be wiþoute synne, ner lyue wiþoute hevynes & sorwe.

21

1545.  Joye, Exp. Dan. ii. 28 b. Because the toes were parte yerne and parte baked erthe, this empyre shalbe partely stronge and partely frayle and weak.

22

1593.  Shaks., Lucr., 225.

        O what excuse can my invention make
When thou shalt charge me with so blacke a deed?
Wil not my tongue be mute, my fraile joints shake?
Mine eies forgo their light, my false hart bleede?

23

1611.  Bible, Ps. xxxix. 4. That I may know how fraile I am.

24

1790.  Beatson, Nav. & Mil. Mem., I. 291. The Governor and Council of that place got notice of the design; who, knowing the frail condition of the place, were greatly alarmed.

25

1853.  Mrs. Carlyle, Lett., II. 222. Too weak and frail to be out of bed, but without pain or sickness.

26

1871.  R. Ellis, Catullus, lxv. 17.

        Lest to the roving winds these words all idly deliver’d,
  Seem too soon from a frail memory fallen away.

27

  b.  dial. (See quot.)

28

[Cf. 1387 in 5.]

29

1886.  S. W. Linc. Gloss., Frait, weak-minded, timid, frightened: as ‘She was born frail, poor lass.’

30

  3.  Morally weak; unable to resist temptation; habitually falling into transgression.

31

  Now sometimes applied as a half-jocular euphemism, to a woman who lives unchastely or has fallen from virtue.

32

a. 1340.  Hampole, Psalter, xxiv. 8. See how frele I am of kynd.

33

1362.  Langl., P. Pl., A. III. 117. Heo is frele of hire flesch · fikel of hire tongue.

34

1597.  Hooker, Eccl. Pol., V. xxii. § 10. In our speech of most holy things, our most fraile affections many times are bewrayed.

35

1667.  Milton, P. L., III. 403.

        No sooner did thy dear and onely Son
Perceive thee purpos’d not to doom frail Man
So strictly.

36

1713.  Young, Force Relig., I. (1757), 54.

        In my short span both fortunes I have prov’d,
And though with ill frail nature will be mov’d,
I’ll bear it well.

37

1824.  W. Irving, T. Trav., I. 250. Even the follies of his fellow-man were treated with the leniency of one who felt himself to be but frail.

38

1868.  Freeman, Norm. Conq. (1876), II. vii. 90. We shall meet with a son of his, most likely a child of the frail Abbess of Leominster.

39

  † 4.  Tender. Obs.

40

1590.  Spenser, F. Q., III. viii. 31.

        He therein saw that yrkesome sight, which smote
Deepe indignation and compassion frayle
Into his hart attonce.

41

  5.  Comb., as frail-bodied, -foreted, -lived, -strung, -witted.

42

1850.  Lynch, Theo. Trin., xi. 211. Trinal was naturally a *frail-bodied man, with yet a vigorous, endeavouring kind of constitution.

43

1860.  Ruskin, Mod. Paint., V. VI. i. § 1. 2. Who prevents its dark forests, ghostly and uninhabitable, from being changed into infinite orchards, wreathing the hills with frail floretted snow, far away to the half-lighted horizon of April, and flushing the face of all the autumnal earth with glow of clustered food?

44

1859.  Ld. Lytton, Wanderer (ed. 2), 204.

        Follow, my Page, where the green grass embosoms
  The enamell’d Season’s freshest-fallen dew;
  Then home, and my still house with handfulls strew
Of *frail-lived April’s newliest nurtured blossoms.

45

1820.  Keats, Lamia, I. 308.

                        The self-same pains Inhabited her *frail-strung heart as his.

46

1387.  T. Usk, Test. Love, III. vii. (Skeat), 57. *Freel-witted people supposen in suche poesies to be begyled.

47

  Hence † Frailful a. [ + -FUL], extremely frail. Frailish a. [+ -ISH], somewhat frail, feeble. Frailly adv., in a frail manner.

48

a. 1300.  Cursor M., 25689 (Cott.). Man … þat frelli fra þi [God’s] frenscep fell.

49

a. 1541.  Wyatt, Domine ne in furore tuo, Poet. Wks. 216. I know my frailful wickedness.

50

1630.  J. Taylor (Water P.), Whore, 33, Wks. II. 108/2.

        King Dauid frailely fell, and felt the paine,
And with much sorrow was restor’d againe.

51

1854.  Lowell, Lett. (1894), I. 209.

        I pledge him, therefore, in a puff—
A rather frailish kind of stuff,
But still professional enough.

52

1860.  Chamb. Jrnl., XIV. 28 July, 50/1. The little acrobats who do the ‘wheel’ alongside omnibuses, their simple costume of ragged shirt and ventilated nethers, the two garments linked frailly by a half-yard of string over one shoulder.

53