brittleness.

1. The tendency of a material to break or crack rather than bend under strain.

2. A tense, fragile quality in a person's manner or emotional control.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• the brittleness of glass
• increased brittleness

On the page

The cold increased the brittleness of the plastic casing.

Usage notes

Primary category: sensory / description. Forms: Usually uncountable; no ordinary plural in this sense. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings. Established modern English lexical item. No separate regional spelling or grammatical inflection entry. Writing functions: description. Commonness: moderately common.