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''foible'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260904152658-00-⌔

foible - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Noun

foible (plural foibles)

  • (chiefly in the plural) A quirk, idiosyncrasy, frailty, or mannerism; an unusual habit that is slightly strange or silly.
    • ✤ Try to look past his foibles and see the friendly fellow underneath.
    • ✤ He knew that this was like the sudden impulse of a madman—incongruous even with his habitual foibles.1
    • ✤ Marguerite Blakeney was, above all, a woman, with all a woman’s fascinating foibles, all a woman’s most lovable sins.2
    • ✤ They made up for the respect with which unconsciously they treated him by laughing at his foibles and lamenting his vices.3
    • ✤ Final fillip in the Vice-President’s study has been a boning up on Premier Khrushchev’s favorite foible, proverbs. The bibulous Russian leader likes to throw out homely homilies in his speeches and conversations […]4
  • A weakness or failing of character.
    • ✤ Synonym: fault
    • ✤ Jesus is reverenced as the one man who has lived unspotted by the world, free from human foibles, able to redeem mankind by his example.5
  • (fencing) Part of a sword between the middle and the point, weaker than the forte.

Adjective

foible (comparative more foible, superlative most foible)

  • (obsolete) Weak; feeble.
    • a. 1648, Edward Herbert, 1st Baron Herbert of Cherbury, The Life of Edward Lord Herbert of Cherbury, page 46:
      • ✤ The good Fencing-maſters, in France eſpecially, when they preſent a Foyle or Fleuret to their Scholars, tell him it hath two Parts, one of which he calleth the Fort or ſtrong, and the other the Foyble or weak […]

Etymology

1640–50, from Early Modern French foible (“feeble”) (contemporary French faible). Doublet of feeble.

Pronunciation

  • IPA: /ˈfɔɪbəl/
  • Audio (US): 🔊
  • Audio (Australia): 🔊
  • Rhymes: -ɔɪbəl

Printed 2026-09-04.

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Footnotes

  1. 1871–1872, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter XV, in Middlemarch […], volume, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, book II: ↩

  2. 1905 January 12, Baroness Orczy [i.e., Emma Orczy], The Scarlet Pimpernel, popular edition, London: Greening & Co., published 20 March 1912, →OCLC: ↩

  3. 1915, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, chapter XLV, in Of Human Bondage, New York, N.Y.: George H[enry] Doran Company, →OCLC: ↩

  4. 1959 July 24, “An Ounce of Prevention”, in Meriden Record, page 6: ↩

  5. 1932, William Floyd, The Mistakes of Jesus: ↩