Fragile

• POS: Adjective
• HYPHEN: frag=ile

CIDE DICTIONARY

Fragile, a. [L. fragilis, from frangere to break; cf. F. fragile. See Break, v. t., and cf. Frail, a.].

 Easily broken; brittle; frail; delicate; easily destroyed.  [1913 Webster]
"The state of ivy is tough, and not fragile."

Syn. -- Brittle; infirm; weak; frail; frangible; slight.

OXFORD DICTIONARY

Fragile, adj.
1 easily broken; weak.
2 of delicate frame or constitution; not strong.

Derivative

fragilely adv. fragility n.

Etymology

F fragile or L fragilis f. frangere break

THESAURUS

Fragile

breakable, brittle, brittle as glass, capricious, changeable, cheap-jack, cobwebby, corruptible, crackable, crisp, crispy, crumbly, crushable, dainty, deciduous, decrepit, delicate, delicately weak, dying, effeminate, ephemeral, evanescent, fading, feeble, fickle, fissile, fleeting, flimsy, flitting, fly-by-night, flying, fracturable, frail, frangible, friable, fugacious, fugitive, gimcrack, gimcracky, gossamery, impermanent, impetuous, impulsive, inconstant, infirm, insubstantial, jerry, jerry-built, lacerable, light, lightweight, momentary, mortal, mutable, namby-pamby, nondurable, nonpermanent, papery, passing, pasteboardy, perishable, puny, rickety, scissile, shaky, shatterable, shattery, shivery, short, short-lived, sissified, sleazy, slight, splintery, tacky, temporal, temporary, tenuous, thin, transient, transitive, transitory, undurable, unenduring, unsound, unstable, unsubstantial, volatile, vulnerable, weak, weakly, wispy, womanish

ROGET THESAURUS

Fragile

Weakness

N weakness, debility, atony, relaxation, languor, enervation, impotence, infirmity, effeminacy, feminality, fragility, flaccidity, inactivity, anaemia, bloodlessness, deficiency of blood, poverty of blood, declension of strength, loss of strength, failure of strength, delicacy, invalidation, decrepitude, asthenia, adynamy, cachexy, cachexia, sprain, strain, reed, thread, rope of sand, house of cards, softling, weakling, infant, youth, weak, feeble, debile, impotent, relaxed, unnerved sapless, strengthless, powerless, weakly, unstrung, flaccid, adynamic, asthenic, nervous, soft, effeminate, feminate, womanly, frail, fragile, shattery, flimsy, unsubstantial, insubstantial, gimcrack, gingerbread, rickety, creaky, creaking, cranky, craichy, drooping, tottering, broken, lame, withered, shattered, shaken, crazy, shaky, palsied, decrepit, languid, poor, infirm, faint, faintish, sickly, dull, slack, evanid, spent, short-winded, effete, weather-beaten, decayed, rotten, worn, seedy, languishing, wasted, washy, laid low, pulled down, the worse for wear, unstrengthened, unsupported, unaided, unassisted, aidless, defenseless, cantilevered (support), on its last legs, weak as a child, weak as a baby, weak as a chicken, weak as a cat, weak as a rat, weak as water, weak as water gruel, weak as gingerbread, weak as milk and water, colorless, non sum qualis eram.

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.