Spanish Word of the Day: débil

When I heard this word for the first time, it was pretty much a false friend for me. In Dutch, we have the word “debiel”, which means “moron” and sounds more or less the same as débil. Yeah, for a while I thought it meant “moron”, so lucky me that I never used it that way, hehe.

So what does it mean? It simply means “weak” or “soft” when speaking about a person, and “faint” when you’re talking about things like sound or light. It can also mean “lame” (according to the dictionary at least, which I didn’t know) like in the sense of “lame excuse”. Pretty funny, hehe.

Sentences

Es de complexión débil.
She has a weak constitution.

Es débil de carácter.
He has a weak character.

El argumento era muy débil.
His reasoning was flawed.

Eres una débil, no aguantas nada el calor.
Don’t be such a wimp, it’s not even hot.

*Sentences taken from “Concise Oxford Spanish Dictionary” and “Diccionario Espasa Concise”.