Word Study
brittle
CIDE DICTIONARY
brittle, a. [OE. britel, brutel, AS. bryttian to dispense, fr. breótan to break; akin to Icel. brytja, Sw. bryta, Dan. bryde. Cf. Brickle.].
Easily broken; apt to break; fragile; not tough or tenacious<-- contrast to flexible; usually hard -->. [1913 Webster]
"Farewell, thou pretty, brittle piece
Of fine-cut crystal." [1913 Webster]
Of fine-cut crystal." [1913 Webster]
OXFORD DICTIONARY
brittle, adj. & n.
--adj. hard and fragile; apt to break.
--n. a brittle sweet made from nuts and set melted sugar.
--adj. hard and fragile; apt to break.
--n. a brittle sweet made from nuts and set melted sugar.
Idiom
brittle-bone disease = OSTEOPOROSIS. brittle-star an echinoderm of the class Ophiuroidea, with long brittle arms radiating from a small central body.
Derivative
brittlely adv. brittleness n. brittly adv.
Etymology
ME ult. f. a Gmc root rel. to OE breotan break up
THESAURUS
brittle
atrophied, breakable, brittle as glass, capricious, changeable, cheap-jack, cobwebby, corruptible, crackable, crisp, crispy, crumbly, crump, crushable, dainty, deciduous, delicate, delicately weak, desiccated, dried-up, dying, effeminate, emaciated, ephemeral, evanescent, fading, fickle, fissile, fleeting, flimsy, flitting, fly-by-night, flying, fracturable, fragile, frail, frangible, friable, fugacious, fugitive, gimcrack, gimcracky, gossamery, impermanent, impetuous, impulsive, inconstant, insecure, insubstantial, jerry, jerry-built, lacerable, light, lightweight, momentary, mortal, mutable, namby-pamby, nondurable, nonpermanent, papery, parchmenty, passing, pasteboardy, perishable, puny, scissile, sensitive, sere, shatterable, shattery, shivery, short-lived, shriveled, shrunken, sissified, sleazy, slight, splintery, tacky, temporal, temporary, transient, transitive, transitory, undurable, unenduring, unstable, unsubstantial, volatile, vulnerable, wasted, weak, wilted, wispy, withered, wizened, womanish, wrinkledROGET THESAURUS
brittle
Brittleness
N brittleness, fragility, friability, frangibility, fissibility, house of cards, house of glass, brittle, brash, breakable, weak, frangible, fragile, frail, gimcrack, shivery, fissile, splitting, lacerable, splintery, crisp, crimp, short, brittle as glass.For further exploring for "brittle" in Webster Dictionary Online