Etymology
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fragile (adj.)

1510s, "liable to sin, morally weak;" c. 1600, "liable to break;" a back-formation from fragility, or else from French fragile (Old French fragele, 14c.), from Latin fragilis "easily broken," from root of frangere "to break" (from PIE root *bhreg- "to break"). Transferred sense of "of frail constitution" (of persons) is from 1858.

Origin and meaning of fragile

Entries linking to fragile

fragility (n.)
late 14c., "moral weakness," from Old French fragilité "debility, frailty" (12c.), from Latin fragilitatem (nominative fragilitas) "brittleness, weakness," from fragilis "brittle, easily broken," from root of frangere "to break" (from PIE root *bhreg- "to break"). Meaning "quality of being easily broken" is from late 15c.
*bhreg- 

Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to break."

It forms all or part of: anfractuous; Brabant; bracken; brake (n.1) "stopping device for a wheel;" brake (n.2) "kind of fern;" brash; breach; break; breccia; breeches; brioche; chamfer; defray; diffraction; fractal; fraction; fractious; fracture; fragile; fragility; fragment; frail; frangible; infraction; infringe; irrefragable; irrefrangible; naufragous; ossifrage; refract; refraction; refrain (n.); refrangible; sassafras; saxifrage; suffragan; suffrage.

It is the hypothetical source of/evidence for its existence is provided by: Sanskrit (giri)-bhraj "breaking-forth (out of the mountains);" Latin frangere "to break (something) in pieces, shatter, fracture;" Lithuanian braškėti "crash, crack;" Old Irish braigim "break wind;" Gothic brikan, Old English brecan "to break."

frail (adj.)
mid-14c., "morally weak," from Old French fraile, frele "weak, frail, sickly, infirm" (12c., Modern French frêle), from Latin fragilis "easily broken" (from PIE root *bhreg- "to break"). It is the Frenchified form of fragile. Sense of "easily destroyed, liable to break" in English is from late 14c. The U.S. slang noun meaning "a woman" is attested from 1908; perhaps with awareness of Shakespeare's "Frailty, thy name is woman."

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Definitions of fragile

fragile (adj.)
easily broken or damaged or destroyed;
fragile porcelain plates
fragile old bones
Synonyms: delicate / frail
fragile (adj.)
vulnerably delicate;
she has the fragile beauty of youth
fragile (adj.)
lacking substance or significance;
a fragile claim to fame
Synonyms: flimsy / slight / tenuous / thin
From wordnet.princeton.edu

Dictionary entries near fragile

fraction

fractional

fractious

fracture

frag

fragile

fragility

fragment

fragmentary

fragmentation

fragrance

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