Sekirov Dictionary

brittle

/ˈbɹɪtəl/

adjective 6
noun 2
verb 2
forms 7

adjective6

•
Inflexible; liable to break, snap, or shatter easily under stress, pressure, or impact.
- Cast iron is much more brittle than forged iron.
- A diamond is hard but brittle.
•
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.
(informal) Characterized by dramatic swings in blood sugar level.

noun2

•
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.

verb2

•
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. — 1999
(no longer used) To gut.

forms

brittled · brittling · brittles · brittler · more brittle · brittlest · most brittle

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