brittle
Meaning
-
- Inflexible; liable to break, snap, or shatter easily under stress, pressure, or impact.
- Not physically tough or tenacious; apt to break or crumble when bending.
- Said of rocks and minerals with a conchoidal fracture; capable of being knapped or flaked.
- Emotionally fragile, easily offended.
- Poorly error- or fault-tolerant; having little in the way of redundancy or defense in depth; susceptible to catastrophic failure in the event of a relatively-minor malfunction or deviance.
- (informal) Diabetes that is characterized by dramatic swings in blood sugar level.
Synonyms
easily broken
brickly
apt to break
be broken
easily cracked
be sprained
be brittle
be fragile
easily damaged
cold-eyed
non-coherent
lacking cohesion
non-cohesive
britlle
Frequency
Pronounced as (IPA)
/ˈbɹɪtl̩/
Etymology
In summary
From Middle English britel, brutel, brotel (“brittle”), from Old English *brytel, *bryttol (“brittle, fragile”, literally “prone to or tending to break”); equivalent to brit + -le.
Bookmark this
Improve your pronunciation
Start learning English with learnfeliz.
Practice speaking and memorizing "brittle" and many other words and sentences in English.
Go to our English course page
Notes