1 hard but easily broken:
brittle bones / nails * The paint was brittle with age.
2 a brittle mood or state of mind is one that appears to be happy or strong but is actually nervous and easily damaged:
brittle confidence / gaiety * a brittle temperament
3 (of a sound) hard and sharp in an unpleasant way:
a brittle laugh * 'Not at all,' she said in a brittle voice, avoiding his eye.
brittleness noun [U]:
the hardness and brittleness of coal * There was a brittleness to his tone.
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About this entry
This is a English–English dictionary entry.
Sourced from Main Dictionary in Lughet's collection.
This word also appears under other sources in Lughet's collection — see the list below.
This entry for brittle is sourced from Main Dictionary, one of the dictionaries and corpora merged into Lughet.
Is brittle a noun, verb, or something else?
In this entry, brittle is tagged as adjective.
Does brittle appear elsewhere on Lughet?
Yes — brittle appears under other sources or language pairs in Lughet's collection. See the list below.
What is Lughet?
Lughet is a free trilingual dictionary covering nearly five million entries across Uyghur, Chinese, and English, drawn from more than ten source dictionaries and corpora.
