brittle
adjective
- easily broken, cracked, or snapped
noun
- confection
Wiktionary
Pronunciation: /ˈbɹɪtəl/ / [ˈbɹʷɪtʰəl] ~ [ˈbɹʷɪtʰl̩] / [ˈbɹʷɪɾəl] ~ [ˈbɹʷɪɾl̩]
adj
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.
- Inflexible; liable to break, snap, or shatter easily under stress, pressure, or impact.
“Near-synonym: crackly”
“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.
name
Etymology: From a diminutive form of Brett.
- A surname.
noun
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.
- A confection of caramelized sugar and nuts.
“As a child, my favorite candy was peanut brittle.”
- Anything resembling this confection, such as flapjack, a cereal bar, etc.
verb
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.
- 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.”
“Her heart fluttered, then stilled when May snapped the image away and her voice brittled.”
- 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”[.]”