a. Obs. Forms: 4 brotel(l, brotil, (brutel, brutil(e), 5 brotill(e, brottyl, (brutyll), 6 brotle. [ME. brotil, brutil, f. broten broken, pa. pple. of bréotan. In use brotel appears as one of the various forms of britil, bretil, BRITTLE, and it may have been of later analogical formation: cf. brickle, brockle.]
1. Liable to break, easily broken; fragile, brittle.
1382. Wyclif, 2 Cor. iv. 7. We han this tresour in brotil [1388 britil] vesselis.
c. 1430. Lydg., Bochas, V. vii. (1554), 127 a. Fortunes fauors be made … Of brotell glasse rather than of stele.
1483. Caxton, Gold. Leg., 324/4. Kepte in a fraylle and brutyll vessell.
b. Frail, perishable, easily destroyed, mortal.
1340. Ayenb., 129. Ysy hou þou art fyeble and brotel.
1362. Langl., P. Pl., A. IX. 37. Þe Bodi þat Brutel is of kuynde.
1413. Lydg., Pylgr. Sowle, V. xiv. (1483), 109. Ony erthely creature closid within a feble and brotel body.
1529. More, Comf. agst. Trib., III. Wks. 1226/1. A brotle man lately made of earthe.
2. fig. Unstable; inconstant, fickle.
c. 1315. Shoreham, 5. Man is so brotel Ine his owene kende.
c. 1386. Chaucer, Parson’s T., ¶ 473. The commendacion of the peple is somtyme ful fals and ful brotel [v.r. brotil, brethil, brutile, brutel].
a. 1420. Occleve, De Reg. Princ., 3861. His welthe hathe but a brotille stablenesse.
Hence † Brotelhede, frailty. Obs.
1340. Ayenb., 130. Huanne þe man … knauþ his pourhede, þe vilhede, þe brotelhede of his beringe.
