Brittle

Quick meaning: Brittle is an adjective meaning Inflexible; liable to break, snap, or shatter easily under stress, pressure, or impact.

Meaning

Inflexible; liable to break, snap, or shatter easily under stress, pressure, or impact.

More Meanings

1. Not physically tough or tenacious; apt to break or crumble when bending.
2. (archaeology, of rocks, minerals, etc) Tending to fracture in a conchoidal way; capable of being knapped or flaked.
3. Emotionally fragile, easily offended.
4. (informal, proscribed, of diabetes) Characterized by dramatic swings in blood sugar level.
5. A confection of caramelized sugar and nuts.
6. (by extension) Anything resembling this confection, such as flapjack, a cereal bar, etc.
7. (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.

Example Sentences

Near-synonym: crackly

A diamond is hard but brittle.

Cast iron is much more brittle than forged iron.

As a child, my favorite candy was peanut brittle.

Word Forms

• brittler
• brittlest
• brittles
• brittling
• brittled

Synonyms for brittle

Depending on context, synonyms include crackly, brickle, embrittle, breakable, coldhearted, toffy.

Antonyms for brittle

Common opposites include tough, pliable.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include brickly, breakable, coldhearted, untempered, unhardened, toffy.

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