Brockle
/ˈbrɒkəl/noun
A chiefly dialectal or Scots adjective meaning brittle, fragile, or easily broken.
Did you know?Brockle belongs to the same deep Indo-European word family as “break,” preserving an ancient metaphor in which weakness is understood as something ready to shatter.
Etymological Timeline
Proto-Indo-European
PIE
*bhreg-
“To break, crack, or fracture.”
Old English
Old English
brycel
“Fragile or liable to break; related to the verb brecan, “to break.””
Middle English
Middle English
brikel / brokyl
“Brittle, fragile, or easily broken; variant spellings developed in regional English.”
17th–19th Century
Scots / Northern English
brockle
“Brittle or breakable, especially describing a fragile object or material.”
Modern English
Dialectal English
brockle
“A surviving regional or dialectal adjective meaning fragile or easily broken.”