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Glite Dictionary
💔 Easily broken 🥶 Emotionally cold 🍬 A hard candy 💔 To make fragile
to brittle

to brittle

7.8
Make something hard and likely to break
  • verb
  • /ˈbrɪtəl/
translation icon : fragilizar
  • Over time, exposure to sunlight brittled the plastic toys in the garden.

Examples

  • The old wood brittled and cracked as we moved it.

  • If you heat glass too quickly, it can brittle and shatter unexpectedly.

  • The cold wind brittled the leaves, making them crumble at a touch.

  • Don't let the candy brittle too long!

  • The cold wind brittled the leaves, making them crumble at a touch.

  • Over time, exposure to sunlight brittled the plastic toys in the garden.

  • The old wood brittled and cracked as we moved it.

Synonyms

to embrittle
vsto brittle
9.1

To make something more likely to break

is the same meaning but is the simpler base word form

Antonyms

to soften
55 1.3

Become soft or make something soft

Compounds

peanut brittle
5 3.1

A hard sweet of cooked sugar and peanuts that you break into pieces

brittle bladder fern
9.9

A delicate fern with thin divided leaves and easily broken stems

brittle bush
  • US
9.9

A scented desert shrub with brittle stems, yellow flowers, and a sticky resin used in incense

brittle fern
  • UK
8.1

A delicate fern with thin divided leaves and stems that break easily

brittle maidenhair
  • US
9.1

A tropical American fern that people often grow for its broad divided leaves

brittle maidenhair fern
  • US
8.9

A tropical fern with thin, easily broken leaves often grown indoors for its pretty look

brittle star
7.7

A sea animal like a starfish with a small round body and long thin arms that break easily

brittle willow
  • UK
8.4

A large willow tree with thin branches that break easily

brittle-star
8.6

A small sea animal with a round body and long thin arms like a starfish

How Brittle

to brittle
7.8
to stiffen
25 3.7
to harden
27 2.6
to soften
55 1.3

Surface Forms

brittle infinitive
brittled past
brittled past participle
brittling present participle
brittles third person singular

Etymology

Brittle as a verb comes from the idea of making something able to 'break', the same basic image behind break. So to brittle something is to make it hard and more likely to crack or fall apart.