Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use weaken in a sentence

40 example sentences · verb

Weaken means to make weaker or less strong. Example: “Over the years my enthusiasm for the job has weakened.”

Examples of weaken by meaning

verbTo make weaker or less strong.

  • weaken a bond
  • weaken a joint

verbTo become weaker or less strong.

  • Over the years my enthusiasm for the job has weakened.
  • Powerful and aggressive forces are constantly probing, now here, now there, to see whether the free world is weakened.1958, President Dwight Eisenhower, 3:06 from the start, in President Eisenhower Speaks On The Formosa Situation (1958), British Pathé

More sentences with weaken

  • The word weak is a simplex. Its derivative weaken is not.From the entry simplex
  • Monarchies where partition isn't prohibited risk weakening through parcellation and civil wars between the heirs.From the entry partition
  • His commitment to remaining a flat-earther seems to be strengthened by counterarguments rather than weakened by them.From the entry flat-earther
  • Climbers must make sure that all knots are both secure and of types that will not weaken the rope.From the entry knot
  • His weakened immune system couldn't cope with the infection.From the entry weakened
  • It makes status hypersalient, weakens social ties, and encourages us to choose prestige over purpose.2024 September 25, Emi Nietfeld, “The Rich and the Poor: How inequality messes with teenagers’ minds”, in Slate. From the entry hypersalient
  • In microgravity their arteries are thickening and stiffening and the muscle of the heart weakening and shrinking.2023, Samantha Harvey, Orbital, Jonathan Cape, page 25. From the entry microgravity
  • She was too weakened by sickness to assert her okayness at full volume.2021, Rivers Solomon, Sorrowland, #Merky Books, page 155. From the entry okayness
  • Russophilia was directly weakened by military base agreements with the US.2015, Boris Popivanov, Changing Images of the Left in Bulgaria, page 126. From the entry Russophilia
  • Smoking weakened the pharyngoglottal closure reflex, pharyngo-upper esophageal contractile reflex and reflexive pharyngeal swallow.2015 July 16, “Association between Chronic Laryngitis and Particulate Matter Based on the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination…. From the entry pharyngoglottal
  • Former Typhoon Maysak was reported to have weakened into a tropical depression as of 2 p.m.2015 April 5, “Typhoon Maysak downgraded to tropical depression”, in Focus Taiwan, archived from the original on 04 Dec 2021, Society. From the entry Oluanpi
  • So the ink she'd been making was sorcelled to weaken, not kill.2014, Karen Miller, The Falcon Throne, Orbit, →ISBN, page 585. From the entry sorcelled
  • Stagflation—inflation combined with minimal economic growth—eroded wages and profits, weakening business and consumer confidence.2013, George R. Tyler, “Facing Reality”, in What Went Wrong: How the 1% Hijacked the American Middle Class … and What Other Countries Got…. From the entry stagflation
  • Some smaller private-equity firms in continental Europe are struggling even more than British outfits, weakening the competition.2012 February 11, “Private equity: Keep calm and carry on: Why London will remain a hub for buy-out firms”, in The Economist, archived…. From the entry retrench
  • Survivor bias commonly weakens observational studies, even those published in premier journals.2011, Q. Ashton Acton, PhD, Heart Diseases: New Insights for Healthcare, →ISBN. From the entry survivor bias
  • Playing on her weakened emotional state, within two months Jacob had sweet-talked her into marrying him.2006, Peggy Moreland, The Texan's Convenient Marriage, Harlequin, →ISBN, pages 33–34. From the entry scumball
  • Weakened heart, summer tomatoes the splash of red mouthsome pleasure dichotomy.2005, Maria Damon, Miek-a-l And, PleasureTEXTpossession. From the entry mouthsome
  • Even in my most stringent noncarb dieting phase I was weakened and powerless in their presence.2004, Jennifer Basye Sander, The Martini Diet: The Self-Indulgent Way to a Thinner, More Fabulous You!, page 116. From the entry noncarb
  • His breath feathered her lips; her spine, her legs weakened, went soft at the wafting warmth.2001, Joan Hohl, Maybe Tomorrow, Zebra Books, →ISBN, page 186. From the entry feather
  • Added one Western diplomat: "Aquino's success undoubtedly weakens the Communists' appeal to the so-called mass base.2001 June 24, Susan Tifft, “The Philippines: Now the Hard Part”, in Time, archived from the original on 12 Aug 2009. From the entry one swallow does not a summer make
  • But Stalin could not weaken faith and conviction in social justice.1989 July 6 [1988 December], Dmitriy Volkogonov, anonymous quotee, “Triumph and Tragedy: A Portrait of I.V. Stalin”, in JPRS Report…. From the entry authoritarianism
  • By morning on the 10th, Billie had weakened to a tropical storm and slowed to 11 kn.1977, Climatological Data National Summary, volume 27, number 13, NOAA, →ISSN, →OCLC, pages 96–97. From the entry P'ing-t'an
  • Notches weaken the negative, and tabs sometimes come off, causing mislights.1976, SMPTE Journal: Publication of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers. From the entry mislight
  • Better get back to the house or it'll weaken my position.1955, J.P. Donleavy, The Ginger Man, page 52. From the entry richery
  • It does not bring in its train loss of faith or weakening of sympathies.1907, Margaret McMillan, Labour and Childhood, page 120. From the entry train
  • Unless passive managers were active stewards of the companies in their funds, the whole concept of shareholder capitalism would be weakened.2025 November 14, John Authers, “Has Passive Investing Grown Too Big to Proxy? The inconvenient truth of shareholder detachment surfaces…. From the entry big three
  • He was in a gravely weakened condition but was able to make the ’45, a great vintage in France.2022 October 6, Eric Asimov, “Echoes of a World War in Wines From the Early 1940s”, in The New York Times. From the entry P.O.W.
  • A weakened Superman tanked an explosion 50 times larger than the Kepler's Supernova and the electromagnetic shock wave hit him.2016 June 2, MercinWithAMouth, “Superman Stongest Feat Ever”, in Comic Vine Forums, retrieved 19 Jun 2017. From the entry tank
  • Additionally, pain causes reflex arthrogenous muscle inhibition, reduces activation of the thigh quadriceps, and weakens the quadriceps 5 ) .2015 August 21, Sung-Bum Ju, Gi Duck Park, Sang-Soo Kim, “Effects of proprioceptive circuit exercise on knee joint pain and muscle…. From the entry arthrogenous
  • Therapeutically, the goal of ACT is not so much to alter a person's self-story but to weaken their attachment to it.2014, John Marzillier, The Trauma Therapies. From the entry self-story
  • White is for choice due to his development and space advantage, but the weakened white king position gives Black some counterplay.2014, Larry Kaufmann, Sabotage the Grunfeld!. From the entry for choice
  • Above all, the establishment of toleration helped to weaken the presumption that plurality in matters of faith inevitably caused social disorder.2012, Faramerz Dabhoiwala, The Origins of Sex, Penguin, published 2013, page 86. From the entry toleration
  • In other words, the signal always weakens while it downwells.2012 January 17, “Typhoon Tip”, in American Weather. From the entry downwell
  • Iron ore producers are facing the first price fall for annual contracts in seven years as demand weakens for steelmaking inputs.2009 February 4, Ben Sharples, “Rebound is close: Forrest”, in Herald Sun, archived from the original on 05 Feb 2009. From the entry steelmaking
  • May occur secondary to a weakened esophagus or after violent emesis, but the hx is nonspecific most of the time.2006, “Gastroenterology: Esophageal Rupture”, in Steven E. Diaz, The Little Black Book of Emergency Medicine (Jones and Bartlett's Little…. From the entry hx
  • If an incantation is just slightly off mark, the magic is greatly weakened or does not work at all.2005, Ray Kurzweil, The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology, Viking, →ISBN, page 5. From the entry Hogwartian

Meaning of weaken

  1. verb To make weaker or less strong.
  2. verb To become weaker or less strong.

Full definition of weaken

Questions about weaken in a sentence

How do you use weaken in a sentence?
Weaken is used as a verb. For example: “Over the years my enthusiasm for the job has weakened.”
What is a short sentence with weaken?
“weaken a bond”
What does weaken mean?
Weaken means to make weaker or less strong.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: weaken (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use weaken in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/weaken. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.