breakable

English

Etymology

From break +‎ -able.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈbɹeɪkəbəl/

• Audio:

  (file)

Adjective

breakable (comparative more breakable, superlative most breakable)

1. Able to break or be broken.
   • 2021 February 24, Greg Morse, “Great Heck: a tragic chain of events”, in RAIL, number 925, page 42:

     The accident was also one of several since Clapham […] that demonstrated the role of breakable windows in the death toll. RSSB research would later confirm and reinforce the need for laminated glass to protect passengers and increase survivability.

2. Fragile.
   • 1942, Emily Carr, “Ways of Getting Round”, in The Book of Small, Toronto, Ont.: Oxford University Press, →OCLC:

     Next Christmas she sent us bisque dolls, very lovely but too breakable to hug; we could not even kiss them but they cracked.

Synonyms

• destructible
• See Thesaurus:fragile

Antonyms

• unbreakable

Derived terms

• breakableness
• breakably
• nonbreakable

 

Translations

able to be broken

• Bulgarian: чуплив (bg) (čupliv), трошлив (bg) (trošliv)
• Catalan: trencable
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 易碎的 (yì suì de)

• Danish: skrøbelig
• Esperanto: rompebla
• Finnish: särkyvä (fi)
• French: frangible (fr)

  Middle French: frangible

• Galician: quebrábel m or f
• Hungarian: törhető (hu)
• Japanese: 壊せる (ja) (kowaseru)
• Kazakh: сынғақ (synğaq), сынғыш (synğyş)
• Manx: brishlagh, so-vrishey
• Polish: łamliwy (pl)
• Russian: ло́мкий (ru) (lómkij)
• Spanish: frangible (es), rompible (es)
• Swedish: bräcklig (sv)

fragile — see fragile

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Translations to be checked

• Serbo-Croatian: ^{(please verify)} slomljiv, ^{(please verify)} slomljive pl, ^{(please verify)} slomljiva n pl

Noun

breakable (plural breakables)

1. Something that is (easily) breakable.

   We had to wrap all the breakables before the movers arrived.

   • 2020 October 16, Sam Roberts, “Ruth Kluger, Author of a Haunting Holocaust Memoir, Dies at 88”, in The New York Times‎^[1]:

     She was, she wrote, “impatient and absent-minded, prone to drop things intentionally or through clumsiness, even breakables like dishes and love affairs; a woman who is perennially on the move, changing jobs and homes at the drop of a hat and inventing reasons afterward while she is packing; a person who runs away as soon as she gets nervous, long before she smells danger.”

2. (usually in the plural, music) A set of customized hardware that is part of a drum kit. Breakables typically consist of: the drummer's cymbals including high-hats, the snare drum, the kick pedal and the drummer's stool.

Usage notes

• May be more common as breakables, the group of things that are easily broken.

Translations

something that is easily breakable

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 易碎品

• Finnish: särkyvä (fi)