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Webster 1913 Edition

Shard

Shard

(shärd)
,
Noun.
A plant; chard.
[Obs.]
Dryden.

Shard

(shärd)
,
Noun.
[AS.
sceard
, properly a p. p. from the root of
scearn
to shear, to cut; akin to D.
schaard
a fragment, G.
scharte
a notch, Icel.
skarð
. See
Shear
, and cf.
Sherd
.]
[Written also
sheard
, and
sherd
.]
1.
A piece or fragment of an earthen vessel, or a like brittle substance, as the shell of an egg or snail.
Shak.
The precious dish
Broke into
shards
of beauty on the board.
E. Arnold.
2.
(Zool.)
The hard wing case of a beetle.
They are his
shards
, and he their beetle.
Shakespeare
3.
A gap in a fence.
[Obs.]
Stanyhurst.
4.
A boundary; a division.
[Obs. & R.]
Spenser.

Webster 1828 Edition

Shard

SH'ARD

,
Noun.
1. A piece or fragment of an earthen vessel or of any brittle substance. Obs.
2. The shell of an egg or of a snail.
3. A plant. [chard.]
4. A frith or strait; as a perilous shard.
5. A gap.
6. A fish.

Definition 2024

shard

shard

English

Alternative forms

Noun

shard ‎(plural shards)

  1. A piece of broken glass or pottery, especially one found in an archaeological dig.
  2. A piece of material, especially rock and similar materials, reminding of a broken piece of glass or pottery.
    • 2014, Paul Salopek, Blessed. Cursed. Claimed., National Geographic (December 2014)
      Inside its exhibit hall, behind panes of glass, in a white-lit lab, a team of restorers works on an ancient Byzantine floor: 44 square yards of stone shards rescued from Lot’s Cave Monastery.
  3. A tough scale, sheath, or shell; especially an elytron of a beetle.
  4. (online role-playing) An instance of an MMORPG that is one of several independent and structurally identical virtual worlds, none of which has so many players as to exhaust a system's resources.
    • 1997, Ultima Online. The term "shard" is related to the backstory of the game, in which the Gem of Immortality is shattered by the Stranger, the protagonist of Ultima I.
      "The planet was still bound to the jewel's magic, even as it lay shattered upon the floor of Mondain's castle. For,[sic] within each shattered remnant of the jewel, dwelled a perfect likeness of Sosaria. Thus is the world in which you are born, live, and die. Brittania[sic], that was once Sosaria, now exists as a thousand worlds, each with its own peoples, history and destiny. This Brittania[sic] is but one of many in the multiverse that is... ...ULTIMA ONLINE." - Intro cinematic to the game, written by Michael Morlan
  5. (databases) A component of a sharded distributed database.
  6. (singular or plural) crystal methamphetamine
Derived terms
Synonyms
Translations

Verb

shard ‎(third-person singular simple present shards, present participle sharding, simple past and past participle sharded)

  1. (intransitive) To fall apart into shards, usually as the result of impact or explosion.
  2. (transitive) To break (something) into shards.
  3. (online role-playing, transitive) To divide (an MMORPG) into several shards, or to establish a shard of one.
Translations

References

  • (pottery) Shard, in the Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, 1974 edition.

Etymology 2

Noun

shard ‎(uncountable)

  1. The plant chard.
    (Can we find and add a quotation of Dryden to this entry?)

Anagrams

Etymology

From Middle English shard, scherd, scheard, schord, from Old English sceard ‎(“a broken piece; shard”), from Proto-Germanic *skardą ‎(“notch; nick”), from *skardaz ‎(“damaged; nicked; scarred”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- ‎(“to cut”). Akin to Scots schaird ‎(“shard”), French écharde ‎(“splinter”), Dutch schaarde ‎(“tear; notch; fragment”), German Scharte ‎(“notch”), Old Norse skarð ‎(“notch, hack”) ( > Danish skår).

Pronunciation

  • (Australia) IPA(key): /ʃaːd/
  • (UK) IPA(key): /ʃɑːd/
  • (US) IPA(key): /ʃɑɹd/
  • Rhymes: -ɑː(ɹ)d

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