brittleness

noun

"brittleness" is a 11-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“brittleness” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

Unranked
below top-frequency English
11
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - The state of being brittle (in various senses).

Corpus desk

Index EN-brittleness · brittleness · English

brittleness · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-MEGA 11 letters
  • VOW-3 3 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-THIN "B" thin
  • PHOTO-UNK Peer pending

Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Key facts for brittleness
PropertyValue
Headwordbrittleness
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters11
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “brittleness” in English

brittlenesssits beyond the 100,000 most-frequent English words, in the long tail of technical, archaic, or otherwise rare vocabulary where spelling doubt tends to strike hardest.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

brittleness is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "The state of being brittle (in various senses).".

No misspelling variants are generated for brittleness in our index, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. We don't track a confusable pairing for this entry, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.

Etymologically, the entry records: From brittle + -ness. The correct English form is brittleness, spelled B-R-I-T-T-L-E-N-E-S-S.

Definition

  1. 1
    The state of being brittle (in various senses).

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how brittleness appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. [David] Riesman did his best, in prefaces to two subsequent editions of the book (at great length in 1961, and, with some brittleness about having to do it once more, in 1969), to correct this reading—to insist that he never meant to suggest that Americans now were any more conformist than they ever had been, or that there's even such a thing as social st…
  2. These vignettes often have the flavor of case studies, with interlocking themes related to the brittleness of the body and the complicated work of mourning.

Etymology

From brittle + -ness.

This word in other languages

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "brittleness"?
"brittleness" is spelled B-R-I-T-T-L-E-N-E-S-S.
What does "brittleness" mean?
As a noun, "brittleness" means: The state of being brittle (in various senses).
What is the origin of the word "brittleness"?
From brittle + -ness. See the full etymology section above for more details.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list