FAINT • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Faint

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adjective

Faint adj. (compar. fainter; superl. faintest)

Lacking strength; weak; languid; inclined to swoon; as, faint with fatigue, hunger, or thirst.

Wanting in courage, spirit, or energy; timorous; cowardly; dejected; depressed; as, "Faint heart ne'er won fair lady."

Lacking distinctness; hardly perceptible; striking the senses feebly; not bright, or loud, or sharp, or forcible; weak; as, a faint color, or sound.

Performed, done, or acted, in a weak or feeble manner; not exhibiting vigor, strength, or energy; slight; as, faint efforts; faint resistance. "The faint prosecution of the war."

verb

Faint v. t. To cause to faint or become dispirited; to depress; to weaken. (Obs.) "It faints me to think what follows."

Faint v. i. (past & past part. fainted; pres. part. fainting)

To become weak or wanting in vigor; to grow feeble; to lose strength and color, and the control of the bodily or mental functions; to swoon; sometimes with away. See Fainting, n. "Hearing the honor intended her, she fainted away." "If I send them away fasting... they will faint by the way."

To sink into dejection; to lose courage or spirit; to become depressed or despondent. "If thou faint in the day of adversity, thy strength is small."

To decay; to disappear; to vanish. "Gilded clouds, while we gaze upon them, faint before the eye."

noun

Faint n. The act of fainting, or the state of one who has fainted; a swoon. (R.) See Fainting, n. "The saint, Who propped the Virgin in her faint."

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Etymology of 'Faint'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Faint" Quotes from Famous Books

... direful havoc to good eyes, especially when the flame is in a mood to flicker and splutter, as gas sometimes does. Take a faint, wavering light and a piece of embroidery and you have as fine a recipe for premature blindness as can be unearthed in a month of Sundays. Sewing in the twilight is equally disastrous, as is the habit of facing the light when ...

— The Woman Beautiful - or, The Art of Beauty Culture • Helen Follett Stevans

... (as from previous bleeding) has a diminished tendency to stiffen after death, the feebleness of this tendency being in proportion to the degree of depression. It presents, also, an unnatural blue or pallid appearance, has a faint and slightly sour smell, and soon becomes putrid. When an animal has died otherwise than by slaughtering, its flesh is flaccid and clammy, emits a peculiar faint and disagreeable smell, and, it need scarcely ...

— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... midst of their evening meal, the faint purring of a motorboat's engine reached their ears, and after a few minutes a boat with two figures in it was seen approaching them, gliding almost noiselessly along one of the waterways. The occupants of the ...

— The Boy Scouts on Picket Duty • Robert Shaler

... How it shattered Vein and tissue to the bone; Dropt me faint and blood-bespattered, Helpless on a bed of stone! While the mare which oft had eaten From my hand, caressed, unbeaten, Left her master doomed, alone. Limply then I lay in dread, Racked with torture, sick and under— Hearing, as through vapours ...

— Successful Recitations • Various

... felt the cold mount from my feet to my chest. Evidently from some part of the vessel they had, by means of a tap, given entrance to the water, which was invading us, and with which the room was soon filled. A second door cut in the side of the Nautilus then opened. We saw a faint light. In another instant our feet trod the bottom of ...

— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne

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