Definition of "brittleness" [brit•tle•ness]

• The property by virtue of which a material is fractured without appreciable deformation by the application of load (noun)
• The state of being brittle; aptness to break; fragility. (noun)

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• "Jimmy Stewart’s self-consciously down-to-earth writer in The Philadelphia Story thinks he has rich Katherine Hepburn pegged from the beginning, but by the end, he’s not so sure; Hepburn’s high-toned brittleness is something of a façade, her ex-husband Cary Grant shows the sort of cunning that other screwball comedies might have assigned to an average Joe, while her up-by-his-bootstraps fiancé, played by John Howard, proves a rather dull fellow indeed."
• "Because he is young, is just two years distant from a brief career as a state legislator and has negligible national security experience, an Obama presidential candidacy could have a porcelain brittleness."
• "As I have noted elsewhere, the Bolling/Byrne example is a classic case of this kind of brittleness in current dynamics."