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.