Brittlest

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Having the highest tendency to break or snap under pressure or stress
2. Exhibiting an extreme lack of flexibility or durability causing easy fracture
3. Characterized by fragility that makes breaking or cracking very likely

Etymology: "Brittlest" is simply the superlative of "brittle", so it means most brittle, the form you reach when comparing things that break most easily. An inflected form gets only a sentence or two, so the real story is in the base word. "Brittle" comes from Middle English "britel", "brutel" or "brotel", which descended from an Old English form reconstructed as "brytel" or "bryttol", meaning "brittle" or "fragile" in a literal sense: prone to or tending to break. The word is built from "brit", a root meaning to break, plus the suffix "-le", which forms adjectives describing a tendency or habit, much as "brittle" itself describes a tendency to snap.

Synonyms: fragile, breakable, delicate, weak, shatterable

Antonyms: tough, durable, strong, resilient, flexible