friable

Borrowed from French friable, from Latin friābilis (“friable”), from friō (“I crumble”).

• enPR: frī'ə-bəl, IPA^(key): /ˈfɹaɪəbl̩/

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• Rhymes: -aɪəbəl
• Homophone: fryable

friable (comparative more friable, superlative most friable)

1. Easily broken into small fragments, crumbled, or reduced to powder.
   • 1977, Angela Carter, The Passion of New Eve:

     Spiders had woven their vague trapezes between the friable heads of dead peonies in enormous glass jars streaked with tide marks where the water had evaporated long ago.

   • 1983, Lawrence Durrell, Sebastian, Avignon Quintet edition, Faber & Faber, published 2004, page 1020:

     This light, friable type of material offered excellent insulation against both desert heat and also the cold of darkness during the winter.

2. (of soil) Loose and large-grained in consistency.
   • 1890, James George Frazer, The Golden Bough:

     So while two men under his directions were digging the grave with sticks in the friable granitic soil, he superintended the costume of the other actors in the drama.

3. (of poisons) Likely to crumble and become airborne, thus becoming a health risk
   • April 1987, Old-House Journal:

     It is when asbestos-containing products are friable that hazardous asbestos fibers are likely to be released and sent airborne.

4. (mathematics, of a number) Smooth: that factors completely into small prime numbers.

• (easily broken into small fragments): crumbly

• brittle

• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “friable”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.
• “friable”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

• fabrile, firable, lifebar

Inherited from Latin friābilis, from friō (“to crumble”).

• IPA^(key): /fʁi.jabl/
• Homophone: friables
• Hyphenation: fri‧able

friable (plural friables)

1. crumbly
2. crummy, pitiful

• friabilité

• “friable”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

• IPA^(key): /ˈfɾjable/ [ˈfɾja.β̞le]
• Rhymes: -able
• Syllabification: fria‧ble

friable m or f (masculine and feminine plural friables)

1. friable, crumbly

• “friable”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 10 December 2024