The word is: frangible. I wonder how many of you are familiar with this word. Well, not me. I love finding a new word and it most frequently happens when I read the Times newspaper! I don’t do this on a regular basis but it works well on a train journey and some of their columnists have a wondrous vocabulary.
So, back to: frangible. The context is in describing a piece of music: ‘Marching to Carcassonne (2002), a sequence for piano and orchestra, has an almost frangible sweetness.’
My first thought went with the word sweetness because frangible reminded me of frangipani, (almost a synonym for marzipan). However, I was on the wrong track. On looking the word up I find it has almost the same meaning as fragile: something that can be easily broken. There are suggestions of brittleness and crispness.
Then there is the fun of finding the Latin root. The Latin verb frangere means to break and all of a sudden there is clarity and with it a new family of words: fracture, fraction, fragment, frail. Love a word family.
Looking back at where I started, the journalist is using frangible in quite a metaphorical, poetic way but I have enjoyed the journey she has sent me on. Random thought: would a man have used this word in the same way? Enough! Back to the housework.