English Reference
Noun

fragility

n.
C1 Advanced US /fɹəˈdʒɪɫəti/ UK /fɹædʒˈɪlɪti/ fragili·ty UK spelling fragilities

n.the quality of being easily broken or damaged. It describes things that are not strong enough to survive a lot of pressure or stress.

n.the quality of being easily broken, damaged, or destroyed. Often used in technical contexts to describe the vulnerability of a system or the physical weakness of a material.


SIMPLE

The glass has a high level of fragility.

CONTEXTUAL

The engineer warned that the bridge's structural fragility could lead to a collapse during a major earthquake.

COMPLEX

The company's market share is vulnerable to the fragility of its supply chain, which relies on a single port for all its raw materials.

The same fragility may also mean that many extinct reptiles and amphibians have disappeared from the fossil record entirely.

ScienceDaily· 16 Aug 2026

Countries including China and the United States showed particularly high levels of systemic fragility.

ScienceDaily· 20 Jun 2026

Borrowed from Middle French fragilité, from Latin fragilitās. Doublet of frailty. Morphologically fragile + -ity.

Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

This entry
Origin Latin fragilitās
Level C1 · Advanced
Frequency Occasional
Updated