Other forms: strengths
Strength is the power to lift, push or endure. Physical strength, inner strength, save your strength, the strength of the wind.
It also means the degree of something's power — the strength of a drink, the strength of an argument, the strength of a currency — and a particular good quality: her strengths are patience and memory. Note the spelling and the sound, both of which are hard: strength has an n before the g and no vowel between the g and the th, and it is one of the longest single-syllable words in English. Strengths, the plural, is harder still.
1nounstrengthThe physical power to lift, push or resist.
“He does not have the strength to lift it alone.”
2nounintensityThe power or intensity of something.
“The strength of the wind took the tiles off.”
3noungoodA good quality somebody has.
“Patience is one of her strengths.”
4nounnumberThe number of people in a group.
“The team is back to full strength.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
strength is a degree of power.
Old English strengthu comes from strang, strong, by the -th suffix that also gives length from long, depth from deep and warmth from warm. It is one of a small closed set of English abstract nouns built the same way.
Proto-Indo-European
*strengʰ-
Proto-West Germanic
*strangiþu — strongness; strength
Old English
strengþu — strength
Middle English
strengthe
English, today
strength
From Middle English strengthe, from Old English strengþu (“strength”), from Proto-West Germanic strangiþu (“strongness; strength”), equivalent to strong + -th. Cognate with Dutch strengte (“strength”), German Low German Strengde, Strengte (“harshness; rigidity; strictness; severity”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA