brittle

英 ['br?t(?)l] 美['br?tl]

GRE低頻詞CET6+TEM8CET4IELTS考研TOEFL常用詞匯

比較級:?brittler ;最高級:?brittlest;名詞:?brittleness;

1. break => brittle.

brittle 脆性的

詞源同break，破開。-le, 表反復。

brittle: brittle: [14] Brittle probably comes from a Germanic stem *brut- ‘break’, which had several descendants in Old English (including the verbs brēotan and gebryttan ‘break’) that did not survive the Norman Conquest. It came in a more than usual profusion of spellings in Middle English (bretil, brutil, etc), not all of which may be the same word; brottle, for instance, current from the 14th to the 16th century, may well have come from the aforementioned Old English brēotan. There is also the synonymous brickle [15], which survived dialectally into the 20th century; this is related ultimately to break.
brittle (adj.): late 14c., britel, perhaps from an unrecorded Old English adjective *brytel, related to brytan "to crush, pound, to break to pieces," from Proto-Germanic stem *brutila- "brittle," from *breutan "to break up" (cognates: Old Norse brjota "to break," Old High German brodi "fragile"), from PIE *bhreu- "to cut, break up" (see bruise (v.)). With -le, suffix forming adjectives with meaning "liable to."

1. This may help to undermine the brittle truce that currently exists.: 這也許會火上澆油，破壞當前脆弱不穩(wěn)的休戰(zhàn)局面。

2. The pizza base retains its crispness without becoming brittle.: 比薩餅的餅底依然酥脆，也沒有變得易碎。

3. These incidents suggest the peace in Northern Ireland is still brittle.: 這些事件表明北愛爾蘭的和平仍然很脆弱。