4 definitions found
From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]:
Brittle \Brit"tle\, a. [OE. britel, brutel, AS bryttian to
dispense, fr bre['o]tan to break; akin to Icel. brytja Sw
bryta, Dan. bryde. Cf {Brickle}.]
Easily broken; apt to break; fragile; not tough or tenacious
From WordNet r 1.6 [wn]:
brittle
adj 1: having little elasticity; hence easily cracked or fractured
or snapped; "brittle bones"; "glass is brittle";
"`brickle' and `brickly' are dialectal" [syn: {brickle},
{brickly}]
2: lacking warmth and generosity of spirit; "a brittle and
calculating woman"
3: (of metal or glass) not annealed and consequently easily
cracked or fractured [syn: {unannealed}]
n : caramelized sugar cooled in thin sheets [syn: {toffee}, {toffy}]
From Jargon File (4.2.3, 23 NOV 2000) [jargon]:
brittle adj Said of software that is functional but easily
broken by changes in operating environment or configuration, or by any
minor tweak to the software itself Also any system that responds
inappropriately and disastrously to abnormal but expected external
stimuli; e.g., a file system that is usually totally scrambled by a power
failure is said to be brittle. This term is often used to describe the
results of a research effort that were never intended to be robust, but
it can be applied to commercial software, which (due to closed-source
development) displays the quality far more often than it ought to
Oppose {robust}.
From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (13 Mar 01) [foldoc]:
brittle
Said of {software} that is functional but easily
broken by changes in operating environment or configuration,
or by any minor tweak to the software itself Also any
system that responds inappropriately and disastrously to
abnormal but expected external stimuli; e.g. a {file system}
that is usually totally scrambled by a power failure is said
to be brittle. This term is often used to describe the
results of a research effort that were never intended to be
robust, but it can be applied to commercially developed
software, which displays the quality far more often than it
ought to
Opposite of {robust}.
[{Jargon File}]
(1995-05-09)
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