fragile

Borrowed from Middle French fragile, from Latin fragilis, formed on frag-, the root of frangere (“to break”). Cognate fraction, fracture and doublet of frail.

• (UK, General Australian, Canada) IPA^(key): /ˈfɹædʒaɪl/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈfɹædʒəl/

  • Audio (US)

    (file)

• Rhymes: -ædʒəl

fragile (comparative fragiler or more fragile, superlative fragilest or most fragile)

1. Easily broken or destroyed, and thus often of subtle or intricate structure.

   The chemist synthesizes a fragile molecule.

   The UN tries to maintain the fragile peace process in the region.

   He is a very fragile person and gets easily depressed.

2. (Britain) Feeling weak or easily disturbed as a result of illness.

• friable
• breakly
• breakable
• destroyable
• destructible
• See also Thesaurus:fragile

• durable
• unbreakable
• undestroyable
• indestructible

• fragilely

• fractal
• fraction
• fractional
• fracture
• fragility
• frail
• frailty
• frangible

Borrowed from Latin fragilis. Doublet of frêle.

• IPA^(key): /fʁa.ʒil/

• Audio (France, Paris)

  (file)

• Homophone: fragiles

fragile (plural fragiles)

1. fragile

• fragiliser
• fragilité

• “fragile” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

• giflera

fragile

1. inflected form of fragil

From Latin fragilis.

fragile (masculine and feminine plural fragili)

1. fragile

• frale
• fragilità
• fragilmente

fragile

1. nominative neuter singular of fragilis
2. accusative neuter singular of fragilis
3. vocative neuter singular of fragilis