Word.ws English Dictionary

brittly

brittly is the alternative form of brittlely.

Meaning of brittlely

Adverb

brittlely (comparative more brittlely, superlative most brittlely)

  1. In a brittle way, shattering easily under stress.
    • He was flung full-length against ice that cracked brittlely under his impact.1930, Alice Alison Lide, Margaret Alison Johansen, chapter IX, in Ood-le-uk the Wanderer, page 134
  2. In a manner that is emotionally fragile, or easily offended.
    • ‘Don’t get upset. They’ll start asking questions and I know you hate people being in your business.’ Ola laughed brittlely as she blew her nose.2023, Yomi Adegoke, The List, 4th Estate, page 92

Forms of brittly

comparativemore brittly
superlativemost brittly

Origin of brittly

From brittle + -ly.

Questions about brittly

What is brittly the alternative form of?
Brittly is the alternative form of brittlely.

Words near brittly in the dictionary

  1. brittlestar
  2. brittlestars
  3. brittlestem
  4. brittlewood
  5. brittling
  6. brittly
  7. Brittney
  8. Brittny
  9. Britton
  10. Brittonic
  11. Brittonicism

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: brittly (page history and authors); brittlely (page history and authors). 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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Cite this entry: “brittly.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/brittly. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.