brittle
/ˈbɹɪtəl/ adjective, noun, verb, proper noun
Forms brittler brittlest brittles brittling brittled
- adjective Inflexible; liable to break, snap, or shatter easily under stress, pressure, or impact. “Cast iron is much more brittle than forged iron.”
- adjective Not physically tough or tenacious; apt to break or crumble when bending. “Shortbread is my favorite cold pastry, yet being so brittle it crumbles easily, and a lot goes to waste.”
- adjective (archaeology, of rocks, minerals, etc) Tending to fracture in a conchoidal way; capable of being knapped or flaked.
- adjective Emotionally fragile, easily offended. “What a brittle person! A little misunderstanding and he's an emotional wreck.”
- adjective (engineering, computing, of a system) 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.
- adjective (informal, proscribed, of diabetes) Characterized by dramatic swings in blood sugar level.
- noun A confection of caramelized sugar and nuts. “As a child, my favorite candy was peanut brittle.”
- noun (by extension) Anything resembling this confection, such as flapjack, a cereal bar, etc.
- verb (intransitive) To become brittle.
- verb (transitive, obsolete) To gut.
- proper noun A surname.
Synonyms
crackly brash brickle embrittle toffee toffy brickly unannealed
Antonyms
Etymology
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.
From a diminutive form of Brett.
Webster’s 1913
Etymology [OE. britel, brutel, AS. bryttian to dispense, fr. breótan to break; akin to Icel. brytja, Sw. bryta, Dan. bryde. Cf. Brickle.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “brittle”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details