Meanings
plural broken reeds
- idiomaticSomething or someone very fragile or unreliable.
Many of the big estates survived. Nor was the peasantry a broken reed in terms of demand for manufactured products.
2002, Colin Jones, The Great Nation, Penguin, published 2003, page 5432 more examples
Lo, thou trustest in the staff of this broken reed, on Egypt; whereon if a man lean, it will go into his hand, and pierce it: so is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all that trust in him.
1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Isaiah 36:6A law on privacy would be cumbersome and hard to police, but as the Press Complaints Commission is a broken reed in this matter, each scandal makes it harder to stave off calls for legislation.
2011 July 5, Simon Jenkins, The Guardian
Origin
From broken + reed (with reference to the quotation in 1611, see below).
Full word history & related roots →Translations
Dutch onbetrouwbaar persoon
- onbetrouwbaar persoonan unreliable person
Greek αναξιόπιστος βοηθός
- αναξιόπιστος βοηθός (anaxiópistos voïthós)an unreliable person
Cite this entry
broken reed. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/broken%20reed
“broken reed.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/broken%20reed. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “broken reed,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/broken%20reed.
Source: broken reed on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.