shard

C2+ Topic:Materials & Substances

US /ʃɑrd/ UK /ʃɑːd/ See IPA manual

Meanings

1

noun
a sharp fragment of broken pottery, glass, or other brittle material

He cut his foot on a shard of broken glass.

Thesaurus

Synonyms

1 noun · a sharp fragment of broken... fragment splinter sliver piece chip shred

Opposites

whole

Word family

Related forms sherdpotsherdshear

Etymology

From Old English sceard ('a gap, notch, fragment'), from Proto-Germanic *skardą ('a cut, notch'), related to sceran ('to cut, shear').

sceard Old English *skardą Proto-Germanic

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# shard

**Type:** Word
**Level:** C2+
**Part of speech:** noun
**IPA (US):** /ʃɑrd/
**IPA (UK):** /ʃɑːd/

## Meanings
1. a sharp fragment of broken pottery, glass, or other brittle material

## Examples
- He cut his foot on a shard of broken glass.

## Synonyms
- fragment
- splinter
- sliver
- piece
- chip
- shred

## Antonyms
- whole

## Related Forms
- sherd
- potsherd
- shear

## Roots and Affixes
- Root: sceard
- Root: *skardą

## Etymology
From Old English sceard ('a gap, notch, fragment'), from Proto-Germanic *skardą ('a cut, notch'), related to sceran ('to cut, shear').

## AI Etymology
Shard comes from Old English sceard ('a gap, notch, fragment'), from Proto-Germanic *skardą ('a cut, notch'), related to sceran ('to cut, shear'). The historical chain includes Old English sceard and Proto-Germanic *skardą. The quoted older senses, "a gap, notch, fragment", "a cut, notch", and "to cut, shear", supply the semantic anchors for shard. The formation is best read as borrowed: the word shard carries its older form-history into a compact English lexical shape. In present English it is used as a noun, "a sharp fragment of broken pottery, glass, or other brittle material". Related English forms include sherd, potsherd, and shear. The result is a noun whose etymology preserves both the older form and the later English specialization.

## Topics
- Materials & Substances

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shard

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