frangible

[ fran-juh-buhl ]

adjective

1. easily broken; breakable:

   Most frangible toys are not suitable for young children.

   Synonyms: frail, fragile

frangible

/ ˈfrændʒɪbəl /

adjective

1. breakable or fragile

Derived Forms

• ˌfrangiˈbility, noun

Other Words From

• frangi·bili·ty frangi·ble·ness noun
• nonfran·gi·bili·ty noun
• non·frangi·ble adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of frangible¹

1375–1425; late Middle English < Old French, derivative of Latin frangere to break; -ible

Word History and Origins

Origin of frangible¹

C15: from Old French, ultimately from Latin frangere to break

Example Sentences

Robert Pattinson has given better performances in better films than The Rover, yet it’s a brief scene from David Michod’s outback dystopian thriller that I always think of when it comes to defining his strange, frangible screen persona.

From The Guardian

As a child of Los Angeles, I have a relationship with reality that is frangible at best.

From Los Angeles Times

But, before us, entombed in the banks of the stream, was a mucky tropical sea bottom, where thin, frangible layers of gray siltstone marked the passage of centuries.

From The New Yorker

Details needed to be worked out, such as a requirement that school guns fire only frangible bullets, which break into small pieces and are unlikely to pass through victims, as a way to limit the danger to innocent students.

From Washington Post

The authors go deep into the patent registry to extract strange nuggets of industrial poetry: “mouth comfort” and “sealable coupling” and “frangible closure” and “upstanding thumb catches.”

From New York Times