brittle

brittle (ˈbrɪt^əl)

—*adj*
1.	easily cracked, snapped, or broken; fragile
2.	curt or irritable: a brittle reply
3.	hard or sharp in quality

—n
4.	a crunchy sweet made with treacle and nuts: peanut brittle

[C14: from Old English brytel (unattested); related to brytsen fragment, brēotan to break]

'brittlely

—*adv*

'brittly

—*adv*

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
Cite This Source

Etymonline

Word Origin & History

brittle

M.E. britel, perhaps from an unrecorded O.E. adj. *brytel, related to brytan "to crush, pound, to break to pieces," from P.Gmc. stem *brutila- "brittle," from *breutan "to break up" (cf. O.N. brjota "to break," O.H.G. brodi "fragile"), and related to bruise. With -le, suffix

forming adjectives with meaning "liable to."

Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
Cite This Source

American Heritage

Science Dictionary

brittle

(brĭt'l) Pronunciation Key
Having a tendency to break when subject to high stress. Brittle materials have undergone very little strain when they reach their elastic limit, and tend to break at that limit. Compare ductile.

Slang Dictionary

brittle

adj. Said of software that is functional but easily broken by changes in operating environment or configuration, or by any minor tweak to the software itself. Also, any system that responds inappropriately and disastrously to abnormal but expected external stimuli; e.g., a file system that is usually totally scrambled by a power failure is said to be brittle. This term is often used to describe the results of a research effort that were never intended to be robust, but it can be applied to commercial software, which (due to closed-source development) displays the quality far more often than it ought to. Oppose robust.

Jargon
Cite This Source

FOLDOC

Computing Dictionary

brittle definition

jargon
Said of software that is functional but easily broken by changes in operating environment or configuration, or by any minor tweak to the software itself. Also, any system that responds inappropriately and disastrously to abnormal but expected external stimuli; e.g. a file system that is usually totally scrambled by a power failure is said to be brittle. This term is often used to describe the results of a research effort that were never intended to be robust, but it can be applied to commercially developed software, which displays the quality far more often than it ought to.
Opposite of robust.
[Jargon File]
(1995-05-09)

Example sentences

Current solar cells are largely made of silicon wafers, an expensive and

brittle material.

At low temperatures, polymer chain mobility is reduced, making the material

more brittle.

To make a transducer by painstakingly micro-machining a brittle block of

ceramic material can take many hours of work, though.

Dry macular degeneration occurs when the blood vessels under the macula become

thin and brittle.

Remove ads like these. Upgrade now!

antimony barley sugar bismuth blotter bort bottle fern

Matching Quote

"Brittle beauty that nature made so frail,
Whereof the gift is small, and short the season,
Flow'ring today, tomorrow apt to fail,
Tickle treasure, abhorred of reason,
Dangerous to deal with, vain, of none avail,
Costly in keeping, passed not worth two peason,"

-Henry Howard Surrey, Earl Of