different between debility vs infirmness

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

infirm +? -ness

Noun

infirmness (uncountable)

1. The quality of being infirm; feebleness.
   • 1664, Robert Boyle, Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours

     For both which purposes I thought it requisite to do these two things ; the one , to set down some experiments , which by the help of the reflections and insinuations that attend them , may assist you to discover the infirmness and insufficiency both of the common Peripatetic doctrine, and of the now more applauded theory of the chymists about colour