different between debility vs faintness

English

Etymology

From Middle English debylite, from Old French debilité (French débilité), from Latin d?bilit?s (“weakness”), from d?bilis (“weak”), from d?- + habilis (“able”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /d??b?l?ti/
• Rhymes: -?l?ti

Noun

debility (countable and uncountable, plural debilities)

1. A state of physical or mental weakness.
   • 1818, Mary Shelley, Frankenstein.

     As I was in a state of extreme debility, I resolved to sail directly towards the town, as a place where I could most easily procure nourishment.

     […]

     I was ready to sink from fatigue and hunger, but being surrounded by a crowd, I thought it politic to rouse all my strength, that no physical debility might be construed into apprehension or conscious guilt.

Related terms

• debile
• debilitate
• debilitation

Translations

Further reading

• debility in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• debility in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

English

Etymology

From Middle English faintnesse, feintnesse, equivalent to faint +? -ness.

Noun

faintness (countable and uncountable, plural faintnesses)

1. The property of being or feeling faint.
   • 1591, William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 1, Act IV, Scene 1, [1]

     And he first took exceptions at this badge, / Pronouncing that the paleness of this flower / Bewray'd the faintness of my master's heart.

   • 1738, David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, Book I, Section 7, [2]

     The confusion, in which impressions are sometimes involved, proceeds only from their faintness and unsteadiness, not from any capacity in the mind to receive any impression, which in its real existence has no particular degree nor proportion.

   • 1949, George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Part Three, Chapter 1, [4]

     The humming sound and the unvarying white light induced a sort of faintness, an empty feeling inside his head.

Synonyms

• faintheartedness
• dimness

Translations

See also

• giddiness
• light-headedness
• vertigo