fragility

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English fragilite, also fragelte,^[2][3] borrowed from Old French fragilité (“frailty, weakness”),^[4][5][6][2] recorded in Anglo-Norman from the early 12th century,^[7] from Latin fragilitās (“brittleness, weakness”),^[5][4][3][6] from fragilis (“brittle, easily broken”),^[5][3][8] from the root of frangō (“to break”),^[5] from Proto-Indo-European *bhreg- (“to break”).^[5] The Shorter Oxford allows that it may also come directly from Latin.^[8] Klein calls frailty a doublet of it.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Moral or spiritual weakness, the frailty of human nature: probably before 1439, in Lydgate's Fall of Princes.^[2] Etymonline dates this sense to the late 14th century,^[5] and the OED's first record of it to 1495.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The word came in with the moral sense, which the OED records until 1623.^[4][8][2] The physical sense, the quality of being easily broken, and hence weakness or delicacy, is first found in 1474, in Caxton's Game and Playe of the Chesse,^[4] and Etymonline likewise dates it to the late 15th century.^[5] A figurative use is recorded from 1603.^[4] Johnson (1755) defined it first as brittleness and then as weakness and uncertainty.^[9] In medicine it is used for the tendency of a tissue or cell to break, burst or disintegrate.^[10]

Timeline

• probably before 1439 – moral or spiritual weakness, frailty (obsolete by 1623).^[2][4]
• 1474 – the quality of being easily broken; weakness, delicacy.^[4][11]
• 1603 – figurative fragility.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. The quality of being fragile, easily broken or damaged: the fragility of old glass.^[3][4]
2. Weakness or delicacy, of health, a situation or the like: the fragility of the ceasefire.^[4][3]
3. Something fragile.^[3]
4. (medicine) The tendency of a tissue or cell to break, burst or disintegrate.^[10]
5. (obsolete, 1495–1623) Moral weakness; frailty.^[4][8][2]

Related words

• fragile
• frail
• frailty
• fracture
• fragment

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
8. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
10. ^ a b Stedman's Medical Dictionary, Baltimore: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins
11. ^ Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)