? Obs. [a. Fr. foiblesse, obs. spelling of faiblesse, f. faible FEEBLE.] a. A characteristic weakness; a failing. b. A liking or ‘weakness’ for (something).
1685. Crowne, Sir Nice, IV. 38. Besides i’ve another humour, but that’s a Foibless will ridicule me.
1755. T. H. Croker, Orl. Fur., I. Preface, p. v. I … must acknowledge my own foiblesse, in conception of a sensible pleasure, when passing through, sometimes, the parterres, finish’d with the nicest art.
1813. Jeffrey, in Edin. Rev., XXI. July, 294. The tone in which M. Grimm notices it, as a mere foiblesse on the part of le Grand Maurice, give us reason to think that it was by no means without a parallel in the contemporary history. Ibid. (1834), LIX. April, 153. However our own foiblesse for such speculations might tempt us to select a few more samples, we suspect that, by this time, our readers have had quite enough of them.
