brittle

American  

[brit-l] / ˈbrɪt l /

adjective

brittler, brittlest

1. having hardness and rigidity but little tensile strength; breaking readily with a comparatively smooth fracture, as glass.

   Synonyms:

   fragile

2. easily damaged or destroyed; fragile; frail.

   a brittle marriage.

3. lacking warmth, sensitivity, or compassion; aloof; self-centered.

   a self-possessed, cool, and rather brittle person.

4. having a sharp, tense quality.

   a brittle tone of voice.

5. unstable or impermanent; evanescent.

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noun

brittles plural

1. a confection of melted sugar, usually with nuts, brittle when cooled.

   peanut brittle.

verb (used without object)

brittled, brittling

1. to be or become brittle; crumble.

brittle British  

/ ˈbrɪtəl /

adjective

1. easily cracked, snapped, or broken; fragile

2. curt or irritable

   a brittle reply

3. hard or sharp in quality

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noun

1. a crunchy sweet made with treacle and nuts

   peanut brittle

brittle Scientific  

/ brĭt′l /

1. 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.

2. Compare ductile

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Synonym Usage

See frail ¹.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• brittleness
  noun
• unbrittleness
  noun
• unbrittle
  adjective
• brittlely
  adverb

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• brittles
  plural

Etymology

Origin of brittle

First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English britel, equivalent to brit- (akin to Old English brysten “fragment”) + -el adjective suffix

Explanation

Something brittle is easily broken. Do you have brittle bones? Then no football or rugby for you. Besides meaning easily fractured and emotionally cold, brittle is also a type of candy made of cooled sugar. To make peanut brittle, bake the ingredients on a cookie sheet then let the brittle cool into sheets which you break into pieces (and then eat — wreaking havoc with your braces). It's ok to use the adjective brittle freely to describe lots of things that will break easily — such as a heart, a theory, or a poorly equipped army.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

brittle brittler brittlest brittled brittling

Tupper’s Mick, at the mercy of his brittle fetishes, may be the most believable of this quartet.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 21, 2026

Think of this as savory frico brittle: buttery Ritz crackers, broken into uneven pebbles and hunks, tossed with Parmesan, herbs and a little fat, then baked until the cheese melts into crisp, golden clusters.

From Salon ● Jul. 14, 2026

Written in Persian on brittle paper in hurried hands, they formed the Mughal empire's information network: part intelligence brief, part official circular, part news bulletin.

From BBC ● Jun. 27, 2026

Among the animals they discovered living off the carcasses were jellyfish, brittle stars, bone-boring worms and molluscs called bivalves.

From Barron's ● Jun. 10, 2026

As if I did not know how thin and brittle he had grown!

From "Nectar in a Sieve" by Kamala Markandaya

Compared to the typical sticky and soft texture, the hybrid rice was firmer and brittler.

From Science Daily ● Feb. 14, 2024

The hybrid rice is apparently a bit firmer and brittler than regular rice, but packs more protein, Matter journal reports.

From BBC ● Feb. 14, 2024

The company found that most of the defects come from an eight-month period in 2007 and 2008, wherein the supplier used nonoptimized resin and made the emblems brittler.

From Washington Times ● Feb. 15, 2023

More immediately serious is a shortage of certain minor essentials such as alloy metals, which meant that the British Army was going to have to be satisfied with brittler steel in its tanks.

From Time Magazine Archive

Yes, the surface had heated up nicely, but the shank of the screw was about two hundred below zero centigrade, and far brittler than glass.

From The Trouble with Telstar by Schoenherr, John

Columbia, as the granddad of all the ships, could have been the brittlest of the fleet.

From Time Magazine Archive

Ahead of his time, he declined to enforce the brittlest dogmas of the new.

From Time Magazine Archive

We probe minute mischiefs to the quick; we lacerate, tear, and mangle our bosoms with misfortune's finest, brittlest point, and wreak our vengeance on ourselves and it for good and all.

From Table Talk Essays on Men and Manners by Hazlitt, William

Love with white lead cements his wings;   White lead was sent us to repair Two brightest, brittlest, earthly things,   A lady's face, and China-ware.

From The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume 1 by Browning, William Ernst

It adds up to trees needing more water, more violent weather events that beat up trees already brittled by drought, and a bonanza of bugs that warmer winters don’t knock back.

From Seattle Times ● Aug. 6, 2016

So June budded into July, and July bloomed into August, and August wilted into September, and September brittled and crisped and flamed at last into October.

From The Sick-a-Bed Lady And Also Hickory Dock, The Very Tired Girl, The Happy-Day, Something That Happened in October, The Amateur Lover, Heart of The City, The Pink Sash, Woman's Only Business by Abbott, Eleanor Hallowell

He grew hot with rage, while his coffee cooled and his rolls brittled.

From What Will People Say? A novel by Hughes, Rupert

Some problems, like the brittling of bone, may have been overcome already.

From New York Times ● Jan. 27, 2014

"Leave off the brittling of the deer," he said, "and to your bows look ye take good heed, For never sith ye were of your mothers born had ye never so mickle need."

From A Bundle of Ballads by Morley, Henry

They blew a mort upon the bent; they sembled on sidis shear, To the quarry then the Percy went, to see the brittling of the deer.

From A Bundle of Ballads by Morley, Henry

The glass test tube went brittling out of Sagner's fingers.

From The Sick-a-Bed Lady And Also Hickory Dock, The Very Tired Girl, The Happy-Day, Something That Happened in October, The Amateur Lover, Heart of The City, The Pink Sash, Woman's Only Business by Abbott, Eleanor Hallowell