debility — a noun meaning “weakness”

debilidad — the Spanish cognate of the same meaning

Early in most Spanish textbooks there will be a list of adjectives used to describe people. Typically, they are arranged and taught as opposites. Thus, you get the Spanish words for “tall” and “short,” “pretty” and “ugly,” “old” and “young,” and “strong” and “weak.”

The Spanish word for “weak” is “débil.” Of the many commonly taught Spanish adjectives, I think this word was one of the hardest for my students to remember. They would usually describe someone as “not strong” (no es fuerte) instead of saying that person was “weak” because they could more easily remember “fuerte” for strong by linking it to “force” or “forceful” to show strength.

They weren’t familiar with the word “debility” in English, or it wasn’t a common enough word in their lexicons to help them easily associate “débil” for “weak” with the word “debility” in English that means “weakness.”

“Débil” along with “debilidad” and our “debility” come from Latin’s debilis which simply means “weak.”

If you “debilitate” something, you weaken it. Unsurprisingly, that word has a cognate in Spanish which is “debilitar.” We often describe a disease as being “debilitating” to someone or we refer to the “debilitation” caused by a cancer or some other insidious disease.

All of these words begin with “debil-,” which is a direct cognate to the Spanish word of “débil,” but we don’t use “debil” alone in English. We simply say that someone is “weak.” However, if a word in English begins with “debil-” then its meaning has to do with being “weak.”

Age works its “debilitating” powers on all of us. I notice my own “debilities” more and more all the time, but I try to work around them.

Some people who suffer from the greatest debilities still manage to turn them into strengths, and I admire those people a lot. Michael J. Fox has managed to live with his debilitating Parkinson’s for more than 30 years and do amazing things despite it.

I vividly remember watching a video (in junior high, I believe it was) of a woman who was born without arms, yet she married and had children and cared for them and cooked and did so many things all with her feet! Nowadays, if you Google this, you will find hundreds of videos and photos of amazing women who were born without arms doing the same thing.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was paralyzed from the waist down due to polio, yet he was elected to four terms as President.

I think the whole world knows of Helen Keller. Illness robbed her of sight and hearing when she was a baby, yet she managed to become highly educated and admired, and she did so much with her life even though it was a struggle.

A “debility” only remains one if we allow it to be, and knowing this word as well as its Spanish cognate and the common Spanish word of “débil” will do the opposite of “debilitate” and will strengthen your vocabulary skills.

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Until next time.

Tammy Marshall

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