Word of the Day

: November 13, 2013

shard

play

noun SHAHRD

Prev Next

What It Means

1 a : a piece or fragment of a brittle substance; broadly : a small piece or part : scrap

b : shell, scale; especially : elytron

2 : fragments of pottery vessels found on sites and in refuse deposits where pottery-making peoples have lived

3 : highly angular curved glass fragments of tuffaceous sediment

shard in Context

Julia was so startled that she dropped the bowl, and it shattered into china shards.

"The machine stubbornly held together for much of the pounding, though shards of glass could be seen flying in different directions with a few of the swipes." - From an article by Tom Precious in the Buffalo News (New York), October 13, 2013

Did You Know?

"Shard" dates back to Old English (where it was spelled "sceard"), and it is related to the Old English word "scieran," meaning "to cut." English speakers have adopted the modernized "shard" spelling for most uses, but archeologists prefer to spell the word "sherd" when referring to the ancient fragments of pottery they unearth. Other specialized uses of the word "shard" include a sense referring to the thick front wings in beetles that protect a hind pair of wings and another sense used for the highly angular curved glass fragments of a type of volcanic rock formation.