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fragile

adjective · noun

Simple meaning

Easily broken or damaged.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

frajuhl

Say the bold part a little louder.

US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈfɹædʒəl

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

adjective

  1. Easily broken, not sturdy; of delicate material.

  2. figuratively

    Readily disrupted or destroyed.

  3. uk

    Feeling weak or easily disturbed as a result of illness.

  4. uk

    Thin-skinned or oversensitive.

noun

  1. Something that is fragile.

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: Easily broken, not sturdy; of delicate material.

Used this way, fragile is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
No strong connotation
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

fragile naturefragile statefragile healthfragile beautyfragile bodyfragile ecosystems

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Word family

Words built from the same root.

  • fragilitynounDerived noun

    Quality of being easily damaged or destroyed.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • fragile fernnounCompound term

    Delicate fern widely distributed in North America and European having thin pinnatifid fronds with brittle stems.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: easily broken or not sturdy

flimsyfrail

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.