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Glite Dictionary
crumbly

crumbly

7 3.0
Easily breaks into small pieces when touched
  • adjective
  • /ˈkrʌmbli/
: desmenuzable
  • We didn't let it cool long enough, so it got crumbly, but it still tasted so good!
  • crumbly mixture
  • crumbly texture
  • crumbly cheese

Do you mean only the crumbliest, flakiest chocolate?

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Examples

  • And there was potato bread, leaden and crumbly in texture.

    Fiction book (1992)

  • When I go to gather it up after mixing, it always seems very crumbly and falls apart.

    Blog text (15)

  • The cheese is very crumbly, kind of hard.

  • We want a really crumbly cake and mix it and mix it.

  • This soil is like crumbly black, smells incredible.

  • It's soft and kind of crumbly and spicy.

  • The biscuit was so crumbly that it broke apart with the slightest touch.

  • I prefer a crumbly topping on my apple pie to give it a nice texture.

  • The crumbly sand at the beach was perfect for building sandcastles.

Synonyms

flaky
vscrumbly
12 3.2

Breaking into small thin pieces like dried paint or pastry

tends to break into smaller, nonflat fragments rather than flakes
short
vscrumbly
6 7.1

Having a crumbly, flaky texture like shortbread

is a general tendency to fall apart, not specifically from fat
friable
vscrumbly
  • Specialized
2 8.9

Easily broken into small pieces or powder

breaks into small pieces rather than turning mostly to powder
flakey
vscrumbly
  • UK
1 4.1

Something that breaks into thin, flat pieces, like old paint or pastry

is the same meaning but presented with a different spelling form
shattery
vscrumbly
1 9.1

Breaks easily into small pieces

falls apart into smaller, softer fragments rather than hard chunks
crumply
vscrumbly
5.9

Having a crisp, crumbly texture that breaks easily

is more generally apt to fall into small fragments, not mainly crisp

Antonyms

solid
224 1.0

Firm and hard so it keeps its shape, not liquid

compact
80 4.1

Small and tightly packed so it does not take much space

How Crumbly

powdery
10 3.0
crumbly
7 3.0
brittle
33 3.9
firm
87 1.0

Surface Forms

crumbly positive

Morphology

crumbly = crumble (transparent) = crumble + y

Derived from the verb 'crumble' with the adjective-forming suffix '-y', so the meaning 'tending to crumble; breaking into crumbs' is directly inferable by learners.

Etymology

Crumbly comes from crumb, an old English word for a 'small piece' of bread, and the ending -ly that means 'having' a quality. That's why crumbly describes something that easily breaks into tiny pieces or 'crumbs'.