weakened

1. 1
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of weaken.

   Her resolve weakened as the negotiations dragged into the night.

   The currency had weakened sharply against the dollar before the bank intervened.

   Note

   Behind this form stand two verbs: one that acts on something and one that simply happens. Transitive weaken takes an object and a passive (the floods weakened the bridge; the bridge was weakened). Intransitive weaken has neither (her resolve weakened). Both build perfects with have, as in the currency had weakened, but only the transitive use can add by and an agent.

   The floods weakened the old bridge.

   The bridge was weakened by years of neglect.

2. 2
   adjective

   Reduced in strength, power, or intensity; made less strong than before.

   Decades of erosion left the cliff face severely weakened.

   A weakened economy struggled to recover from the long recession.

   Similarimpaired, diminished, compromised, debilitated, enfeebled

   Oppositereinforced, fortified, bolstered

   Note

   A participle that has settled into an adjective, and it compares the way long adjectives do: more weakened, most weakened, rather than an added -er. It sits comfortably before a noun (a weakened immune system, a weakened economy) and readily takes degree adverbs such as severely. Once an agent is named, as in weakened by floods, the phrase leans back toward the verb form.

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