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weak (or unaccented): a rhyme between two sets of one or more unstressed syllables. (hammer, carpenter) semirhyme: a rhyme with an extra syllable on one word. (bend, ending) forced (or oblique): a rhyme with an imperfect match in sound. (green, fiend; one, thumb) assonance: matching vowels.
In grammar, the term weak (originally coined in German: schwach) is used in opposition to the term strong (stark) to designate a conjugation or declension when a language has two parallel systems. The only constant feature in all the grammatical usages of the word "weak" is that it forms a polarity with "strong"; there is not necessarily any ...
The term imbecile was once used by psychiatrists to denote a category of people with moderate to severe intellectual disability, as well as a type of criminal. [1] [2] The word arises from the Latin word imbecillus, meaning weak, or weak-minded. [3]
The right-hand column notes whether the verb is weak or strong and whether it belongs to a subclass, and links to descriptions elsewhere. Information about the development of these verbs generally can be found at English irregular verbs ; details of the etymology and usage of specific verbs can be found by consulting Wiktionary.
Weak verbs form the past tense by adding endings with -d-in them (sometimes -t-) to the stem. In Modern English, these endings have merged as -ed, forming the past tense for most verbs, such as love, loved and look, looked. Weak verbs already make up the vast majority of verbs in Old English. There are two major types: class I and class II.
The following is a handy reference for editors, listing various common spelling differences between national varieties of English. Please note: If you are not familiar with a spelling, please do some research before changing it – it may be your misunderstanding rather than a mistake, especially in the case of American and British English spelling differences.
Some weak verbs continue the vowel shift called Rückumlaut ("reverse umlaut"). Details of the history of these verbs can be found under Germanic weak verb; those with -gh-in the spelling were also affected by the Germanic spirant law. A few weak verbs have undergone additional contractions or vowel shortenings in their past or present tense forms.
German has many more weak nouns than English; for example, Bär (pl. Bären) "bear", Name (pl. Namen) "name", Held (pl. Helden) "hero". Some nouns such as the neuter noun Auge (pl. Augen) have a mixed inflection, being strong in the singular but having the characteristic -en plural ending of a weak noun.