weakening

Etymology

verb

1. present participle and gerund of weaken

noun

1. An instance or process of loss of strength.
   That immortal creature had gone over the proofs with great pains — had of course taken out the stiflings — hard-plungings, lungeings, and other convulsions — and had also taken out her weakenings and damagings of her own effects. 1855, Charles Dickens, Household Words
2. (uncountable, mathematics) A structural principle of mathematical logic that states that the hypotheses of any derived fact may be freely extended with additional assumptions.