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Gene93 Posted 11 years ago
Vocabulary

frail

Hello,
Is it natural to say: "A garden with a frail wooden fence around it.", "The climber dangled by one frail rope."? About a year ago I was told that "frail" sounds odd in collocation with physical objects. Is that true?

Thank you
  

Top answer

Usually yes. At best it sounds "creative".

— GPY

  • Usually yes.
  • At best it sounds "creative".
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7 Answers
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Usually yes. At best it sounds "creative".
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I think a person could be frail, a country's economy might be frail. For objects I am usually more likely to say fragile. What do you think?
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Gene93Is it natural to say ...
Very iffy, I'd say, but possible.
Gene93I was told that "frail" sounds odd in collocation with physical objects.
A bit odd, yes. By far, the collocation is with people, especially elderly people. I checked it out on fraze.it. There were about 2,000 sentences found with "frail" and it was ver
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Does "frail economy" sound odd to you? This collocation is used by a few dictionaries. That means nothing to me, though.
What would you use with economy? I was thinking of crumbling, faltering (I know they are different
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Gene93Does "frail economy" sound odd to you?
No. It's close to the core meaning: ailing.
Gene93What would you use with economy? I was thinking of crumbling, faltering (I know they are different ), on the rocks/ropes.We can also say that the economy is no longer viable, can't we? I think it's a great deal of personal preference, really
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I am glad they do. I am pretty anxious and I don't want to choose the wrong word. Where I come from people also use "healthy economy", but that probably doesn't work in English. I think that we can also use "fall apart" in this context, can't we? Figuratively.
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Gene93healthy economy
Fine in English.
Gene93fall apart
Also OK.

CJ
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