In a relational database, a weak entity is an entity that cannot be uniquely identified by its attributes alone; therefore, it must use a foreign key in conjunction with its attributes to create a primary key. The foreign key is typically a primary key of an entity it is related to.
The foreign key is an attribute of the identifying (or owner, parent, or dominant) entity set. Each element in the weak entity set must have a relationship with exactly one element in the owner entity set, and therefore, the relationship cannot be a many-to-many relationship.
Two entities can be associated without either being classified as weak, even if one depends on the other, as long as each has its own unique attribute.