Brittle means hard but snapping easily, like dry twigs or old bones. Brittle plastic, brittle nails, gone brittle with age.
In materials science it is precise: a brittle material breaks with little or no bending first, against a ductile one that stretches. Cold makes many materials more brittle, which is why things snap in winter. Of a person, brittle means tense and close to breaking under a controlled surface: a brittle cheerfulness. Note brittle bone disease, and that brittle is not the same as weak — glass is brittle and strong.
1adjectivebrittleHard but snapping easily.
“The plastic had gone brittle after about ten summers.”
synonyms: fragile, breakable
2adjectivetenseTense and close to breaking, of a person.
“There was a brittle cheerfulness about the whole afternoon.”
brittle is a quality of breaking easily.
Also accepted in games: fragile
Old English brytel comes from a verb meaning to break, related to the root behind brittle's cousin bruise. The word has always described the way a thing fails rather than how much force it takes.
Old English
*brytel
Middle English
britel
English, today
brittle
Built from
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.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Sharper Adjectives, Materials & Substances, Texture & Touch, Repair & Damage