spröde

Spröde is a term used in Swedish and Germanic languages to describe something that is brittle or easily damaged. The core sense is a lacking resilience that leads to fracture under stress. In everyday language, spröde can refer to physical objects as well as situations or traits, such as a spröde material, a spröde personality, or a spröde emotional state, indicating delicacy or fragility.

In materials science, brittleness is the tendency of a material to fracture with little or no plastic deformation when subjected to external forces. Spröde materials typically fail suddenly under impact or rapid loading, and they exhibit little warning before fracture. Common examples include glass, some ceramics, and certain metals at low temperatures. By contrast, ductile materials undergo noticeable plastic deformation before breaking.

Etymology and related terms: The word originates in the Germanic linguistic area, with German spröde and Swedish spröd as closely related forms. They are cognate with English brittle in sense, though the words diverge in form. In modern usage, spröde remains a standard descriptive term in technical, educational, and colloquial contexts for fragility and lack of toughness.