brittle

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

When stretched, solids elongate until they reach a critical stress point, then break suddenly in a process known as brittle fracture.

From Science Daily • Mar. 30, 2026

A renowned theater director who has embarked on a kind of permanent vacation in his 60s, he continues: “I am wifeless, childless, brotherless, sisterless, I am my well-known self, made glittering and brittle by fame.”

From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 4, 2026

We move in a familiar loop: outrage at dysfunction, ritualized critique, then a quiet hope that the same brittle systems will somehow stabilize themselves when the stakes get high.

From Salon • Jan. 24, 2026

"Any dissolution of the coalition essentially would make the right of centre look brittle and fragile and disunited," he told AFP.

From Barron's • Jan. 22, 2026

His rivalry with Bridges and Sturtevant, his former lab partners from Columbia University, reached a brittle end point, and his relationship with Morgan, never warm, devolved into icy hostility.

From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee