fragility

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Middle French fragilité, from Latin fragilitās. Doublet of frailty.

Morphologically fragile +‎ -ity

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /fɹəˈd͡ʒɪlɪti/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪlɪti

Noun

fragility (countable and uncountable, plural fragilities)

1. The condition or quality of being fragile; brittleness; frangibility.
   • 2013 June 7, David Simpson, “Fantasy of navigation”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 188, number 26, page 36:

     It is tempting to speculate about the incentives or compulsions that might explain why anyone would take to the skies in [the] basket [of a balloon]: […]; perhaps to moralise on the oneness or fragility of the planet, or to see humanity for the small and circumscribed thing that it is; […].

2. Weakness; feebleness.
3. (obsolete) Liability to error and sin; frailty.

Derived terms

• black fragility
• white fragility

Translations

condition or quality of being fragile

• Asturian: fraxilidá f
• Bulgarian: чупливост (bg) f (čuplivost), трошливост (bg) f (trošlivost)
• Catalan: fragilitat f
• Czech: křehkost (cs) f
• Danish: skrøbelighed c
• Dutch: broosheid (nl) f
• Finnish: hauraus (fi)
• French: fragilité (fr) f
• Galician: fraxilidade (gl) f
• German: Zerbrechlichkeit (de) f
• Ido: frajileso (io)
• Irish: leochaileacht f, sobhristeacht f
• Italian: fragilità (it) f
• Latin: fragilitās f
• Malay: kerapuhan (ms)
• Maori: kopītanga
• Portuguese: fragilidade (pt) f
• Russian: хрупкость (ru) (xrupkostʹ), недолговечность (ru) (nedolgovečnostʹ)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Roman: krhkost (sh) f, lomljivost (sh) f

• Spanish: fragilidad (es) f
• Swedish: skörhet (sv) c, ömtålighet (sv) c
• Turkish: kırılganlık (tr), narinlik (tr), hassaslık (tr), kırılabilirlik, frajilite
• Ukrainian: кри́хкість f (krýxkistʹ), ла́мкість f (lámkistʹ)

weakness

• Bulgarian: слабост (bg) f (slabost), деликатност (bg) f (delikatnost)
• Finnish: heikkous (fi)
• Irish: laige f
• Russian: сла́бость (ru) (slábostʹ)

References

• “fragility”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.