Etymology From Middle English frele, fraill, from Old French fraile, from Latin fragilis. Cognate to fraction, fracture, and doublet of fragile.
1
Easily broken physically; not firm or durable; liable to fail and perish.
Returne with ſpeed, time paſſeth ſwift away, Our life is fraile, and we may dye to day.c. 1587–1588 (date written), [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire; London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act I, scene i:
Its nest is composed of the frailest materials, and is light and small in proportion to the size of the bird1831, John James Audubon, Ornithological Biography: Volume 1: Blue-grey Fly-catcher:
2
Weak; infirm.
Frail smoke of morning in the air and a sort of muffled hum that is not sound but is not silence either.1993, John Banville, Ghosts:
O as the soft and frail lights break upon your eyelids1922, Isaac Rosenberg, Dawn:
3
Medicine, Sciences In an infirm state leading one to be easily subject to disease or other health problems, especially regarding the elderly.
4
Mentally fragile.
5
Liable to fall from virtue or be led into sin; not strong against temptation; weak in resolution; unchaste.
She was the roughest, toughest frail, but Minnie had a heart as big as a whale.1931, Cab Calloway, Irving Mills, Minnie the Moocher:
There were five people in the Quirinal bar after dinner, a high-class Italian frail who sat on a stool making persistent conversation against the bartender's bored: “Si … Si … Si,” a light, snobbish Egyptian who was lonely but chary of the woman, and the two Americans.1934, F[rancis] Scott Fitzgerald, Tender is the Night: A Romance, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC; republished as chapter X, in Malcolm Cowley, editor, Tender is the Night: A Romance … With the Author’s Final Revisions, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1951, →OCLC, book IV (Escape: 1925–1929), page 238:
3 more examples
‘She's pickin' 'em tonight, right on the nose,’ he said. ‘That tall black-headed frail.’1939, Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep, Penguin, published 2011, page 148:
Sullivan, the girl and the butler get to the ground. The girl wears a turtle-neck sweater, a cap slightly sideways, a torn coat, turned-up pants and sneakers. SULLIVAN Why don't you go back with the car... You look about as much like a boy as Mae West. THE GIRL All right, they'll think I'm your frail.1941, Preston Sturges, “Sullivan's Travels”, in Five Screenplays, →ISBN, page 77:
It’s only a frail. Let’s bust her head in.1985 January 24, Alan Moore, “Night Olympics, Part One”, in Detective Comics, volume 1, number 549:
frail
verb
Etymology From Middle English frele, fraill, from Old French fraile, from Latin fragilis. Cognate to fraction, fracture, and doublet of fragile.
1
To play a stringed instrument, usually a banjo, by picking with the back of a fingernail.
frail
noun
Etymology From Middle English frayel, from Old French frael, fraiel, of unknown origin; possibly a dissimilatory variant of flael, flaiel (“flail”).
1
A basket made of rushes, used chiefly to hold figs and raisins.
2
The quantity of fruit or other items contained in a frail.
The scythe, the sickle and the flail (or "frail", is it is invariably called) - these should surely be incorporated in the county arms, for on their use much of the prosperity of Essex has always rested until now.1948, C. Henry Warren, The English Counties, Essex: Odhams, page 170: