different between brittle vs crusty

English

Etymology

From Middle English britel, brutel, brotel (“brittle”), from Old English *brytel, *bryttol (“brittle, fragile”, literally “prone to or tending to break”); equivalent to brit +? -le.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?b??tl?/
• Rhymes: -?t?l

Adjective

brittle (comparative brittler or more brittle, superlative brittlest or most brittle)

1. Inflexible, liable to break or snap easily under stress or pressure.

   Cast iron is much more brittle than forged iron.

   A diamond is hard but brittle.
2. Not physically tough or tenacious; apt to break or crumble when bending.

   Shortbread is my favorite cold pastry, yet being so brittle it crumbles easily, and a lot goes to waste.

3. (archaeology) Said of rocks and minerals with a conchoidal fracture; capable of being knapped or flaked.
4. Emotionally fragile, easily offended.

   What a brittle personality! A little misunderstanding and he's an emotional wreck.

5. (informal, proscribed) Diabetes that is characterized by dramatic swings in blood sugar level.

Derived terms

• brittle bone disease
• brittlebush
• brittlegill
• brittle hair syndrome
• brittlely, brittly
• brittleness
• brittle star
• brittlestem
• quasibrittle

Translations

Noun

brittle (usually uncountable, plural brittles)

1. A confection of caramelized sugar and nuts.

   As a child, my favorite candy was peanut brittle.

2. Anything resembling this confection, such as flapjack, a cereal bar, etc.

Synonyms

• brickle

Translations

See also

• break, breakable
• short (adjective)

References

• brittle in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.

Anagrams

• blitter, triblet

English

Etymology

From Middle English, equivalent to crust +? -y.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?k??sti/
• Rhymes: -?sti

Adjective

crusty (comparative crustier, superlative crustiest)

1. Having a crust, especially a thick one.
   • 1899, Kate Chopin, The Awakening

     No one was there. But there was a cloth spread upon the table that stood against the wall, and a cover was laid for one, with a crusty brown loaf and a bottle of wine beside the plate

2. (informal, figuratively, of a person or behavior) Short-tempered and gruff but, sometimes, with a harmless or benign inner nature.

   Synonyms: gruff, peevish, surly, harsh

   • 1922, Henry William Fischer, Abroad with Mark Twain and Eugene Field

     Then somebody told a story about the Swedish Majesty's last sojourn in Norway. There, at a railway station, Oscar ran against a crusty old farmer who thought himself a lot better than a mere king and kept his hat on.

3. (informal) Of very low quality. (Can we add an example for this sense?)

   Synonym: inferior

Translations

Noun

crusty (plural crusties)

1. (chiefly Britain, informal) A tramp or homeless young person with poor cleanliness.
2. (slang) Dried eye mucus.

   Synonyms: (UK dialectal) gound, sleep, (informal) sleepy dust

   • 1999, Vinnie Hansen, Murder, Honey, Xlibris Corporation, ?ISBN, page 155:

     Against the backdrop of muted stripes of color, Julieanne picked at her eyes’ crusties, and then combed her hair with the hand.

   • 2003, Mary O'Connell, "Saint Anne", in Living with Saints, Grove Press, ?ISBN, page 209:

     Jesus, how could I bear the sight of him—sleep crusties lodged in the corners of his rheumy eyes, a puff of chest hair cresting like meringue over the top of his V-neck sweater, khakis jacked up to his breastbone—when I was used to looking at the singularly lovely Isabella?

   • 2005, Jeffrey Dinsmore, I, an Actress: The Autobiography of Karen Jamey, Contemporary Press, ?ISBN, page 51:

     I wiped the crusties from my eyes, threw on a sundress, and wandered out into the living room.

3. (chiefly Britain, informal) A member of an urban subculture with roots in punk and grebo, characterized by antiestablishment attitudes and an unkempt appearance.
   • 1998, Simon Reynolds, Energy Flash, Soft Skull Press (2012) (?ISBN), page 135:

     The Spirals are part of the crossover between the rave scene and the ‘crusty’ subculture—crusties being squat-dwelling anarcho-hippy-punk types named after their matted dreadlocks and post-apocalyptic garb.

Alternative forms

• crustie

See also

• cruddy
• crufty

References

• crusty in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• “crusty” in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.
• "crusty" in the Wordsmyth Dictionary-Thesaurus (Wordsmyth, 2002)
• "crusty (adj. easily annoyed)" in Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary (Cambridge University Press, 2007)
• "crusty (n. an unwashed person)" in Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary (Cambridge University Press, 2007)
• “crusty”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–present.
• Oxford English Dictionary, second edition (1989)
• Random House Webster's Unabridged Electronic Dictionary (1987-1996)

Anagrams

• curtsy