brittle

comparative brittler · comparative more brittle · superlative brittlest · superlative most brittle

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

   A diamond is hard but brittle.

   3 more examples

   Near-synonyms: crackly, (technical) brash

   Cast iron is much more brittle than forged iron.

   'Do you suppose our convent, and I too, Are insufficient, then, to pray for you? Thomas, that joke's not good. Your faith is brittle.

   1951, Geoffrey Chaucer, translated by Nevill Coghill, The Canterbury Tales: Translated into Modern English (Penguin Classics), Penguin Books, published 1977, page 329

   Synonyms: crackly, brash · Antonyms: tough, pliable

2. 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.

3. minerals; etc; minerals; etcarchaeologyTending to fracture in a conchoidal way; capable of being knapped or flaked.
4. Emotionally fragile, easily offended.

   What a brittle person! A little misunderstanding and he's an emotional wreck.

5. computingPoorly 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.
6. informalproscribedCharacterized by dramatic swings in blood sugar level.

plural brittles

1. uncountableusuallyA confection of caramelized sugar and nuts.

   As a child, my favorite candy was peanut brittle.

   Synonyms: brickle

2. broadlyuncountableusuallyAnything resembling this confection, such as flapjack, a cereal bar, etc.

present singular third person brittles · participle present brittling · participle past brittled · past brittled

1. intransitiveTo become brittle.

   Her heart fluttered, then stilled when May snapped the image away and her voice brittled.

   2020, Alys Murray, The Magnolia Sisters

   1 more example

   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

   Synonyms: embrittle

2. obsoletetransitiveTo 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

plural Brittles

1. A surname.