fragility

English

Etymology

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

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /fɹəˈd͡ʒɪlɪti/
• 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

• 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 f
• 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
• Maori: kopītanga
• Portuguese: fragilidade (pt) f
• Russian: хрупкость (ru) (xrupkostʹ), недолговечность (ru) (nedolgovečnostʹ)
• Serbo-Croatian:

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

• Spanish: fragilidad f
• Swedish: skörhet (sv) c, ömtålighet (sv) c
• Turkish: kırılganlık (tr), narinlik (tr), hassaslık (tr), kırılabilirlik, frajilite

weakness

• Bulgarian: слабост (bg) f (slabost), деликатност (bg) f (delikatnost)
• Finnish: heikkous (fi)

• Russian: сла́бость (ru) (slábostʹ)

References

• fragility in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.