brittle
Syllables: brit·tle/ˈbɹɪtəl/
brittle adjective: inflexible; liable to break, snap, or shatter easily under stress, pressure, or impact.
Adjective
brittle (comparative brittler or more brittle, superlative brittlest or most brittle)
- Inflexible; liable to break, snap, or shatter easily under stress, pressure, or impact.
- Near-synonyms: crackly, (technical) brash
- Cast iron is much more brittle than forged iron.
- 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.
- Tending to fracture in a conchoidal way; capable of being knapped or flaked.
- Emotionally fragile, easily offended.
- What a brittle person! A little misunderstanding and he's an emotional wreck.
- 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.
- Characterized by dramatic swings in blood sugar level.
Noun
brittle (usually uncountable, plural brittles)
- A confection of caramelized sugar and nuts.
- As a child, my favorite candy was peanut brittle.
- Synonyms:
- brickle
- Anything resembling this confection, such as flapjack, a cereal bar, etc.
Verb
brittle (third-person singular simple present brittles, present participle brittling, simple past and past participle brittled)
- To become brittle.
- The project is based on a similar project, the Class project, which was started by the University of Cornell several years ago under the leadership of Stuart Lynn to preserve brittling old books.1999, J. Siekmann, Maria T. Pazienza, J. G. Carbonell, Information Extraction: Towards Scalable, Adaptable Systems, page 24
- Her heart fluttered, then stilled when May snapped the image away and her voice brittled.2020, Alys Murray, The Magnolia Sisters
- Synonyms:
- embrittle
- To gut.
- Not being versed in the terms of English venery, he asked Abbot Ulfketyl what brittling of a deer might mean; and being informed that it was that operation on the carcass of a stag which his countrymen called eventrer, and Highland gillies now “gralloching”[.]1866, Charles Kingsley, chapter 38, in Hereward the Wake, London: Nelson
Proper noun capitalized: Brittle
Brittle (plural Brittles)
- A surname.
brittle meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
brittle in Hindi
- brittle, fragile
- भंगुर bhaṅgur
brittle in Tamil
- உடையக்கூடிய, எளிதில் உடையக்கூடிய, நொய்மையான, நொறுங்கும், எளிதினொருங்குகின்ற, எளிதினொறுங்குகின்ற
brittle in Marathi
- ठिसूळ
brittle in Urdu
- کاغذی, کرکرا, نازک
More languagesFewer languages
- brittle in Bengali
- ভঙ্গুর
- brittle in Malayalam
- എളുപ്പത്തിൽ പൊട്ടുന്ന, വേഗം ഒടിയുന്ന, ഭേദ്യ, ലംഘ്യ
- brittle in Kannada
- ಗರಗು, ಗಡಸು, ಗಱುಗು, ಗಱಗು
- brittle in Punjabi
- ਭੁਰਭੁਰਾ
- brittle in Vietnamese
- giòn
Examples of brittle in a sentence
- Torrefied biomass is more brittle than raw biomass and has a higher carbon content.
- This paper yellows with age and gets brittle.
- But then, because the nuclear family is so brittle, the fragmentation continued.
Synonyms of brittle
Antonyms
Forms of brittle
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | brittler |
| comparative | more brittle |
| superlative | brittlest |
| superlative | most brittle |
| Noun | |
| plural | brittles |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | brittles |
| present participle | brittling |
| past participle | brittled |
| past | brittled |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Brittles |
Origin of brittle
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.
Words formed from brittle
Phrases with brittle
Words that rhyme with brittle
2 more rhymesFewer rhymes
Questions about brittle
- What does brittle mean?
- Brittle means inflexible; liable to break, snap, or shatter easily under stress, pressure, or impact.
- What is brittle in Hindi?
- Brittle in Hindi is भंगुर (bhaṅgur). See Brittle meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is brittle?
- Brittle can be an adjective, a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce brittle?
- Brittle is pronounced /ˈbɹɪtəl/.
Words near brittle in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: brittle (page history and authors); Brittle (page history and authors); भंगुर (Hindi) (page history and authors); brittle (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); brittle (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); brittle (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); brittle (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); brittle (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); brittle (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); brittle (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-brittle.ogg.
Cite this entry: “brittle.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/brittle. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.