Word of the Day

Sunday, January 06, 2008

friable

\FRY-uh-buhl\ , adjective;

Easily crumbled, pulverized, or reduced to powder.

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Quotes:

Just as sometimes I feel that reading some of those books on very friable yellow paper that come apart in your hand, and come unglued from the spine, and the print's all over the page, and it seems to have been written for people who have magnifying lenses in their glasses, that's hard work too.

-- Angela Carter, Shaking a Leg: Collected Writings

The house was so alive with vermin and tiny despicable things that it seemed no more than a shell surrounding him, crackling and friable and the same color in all its shadows as a forest.

-- Anne Rice, The Vampire Armand

Origin:

Friable comes from Latin friabilis, from friare, "to rub, break, or crumble into small pieces."