/ʃaːd/, /ʃɑːd/, /ʃɑɹd/
OriginFrom Middle English shard, scherd, scheard, schord, from Old English sċeard (“a broken piece; shard”), from Proto-West Germanic *skard, 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).
The database sense is perhaps derived from the online gaming sense or from SHARD (System for Highly Available Replicated Data), name of a 1980s database product.
- A piece of broken glass or pottery, especially one found in an archaeological dig.
“You know there is something fascinating beyond that wall because someone's tried to stop you seeing over, and there are shards of glass embedded in the top.”
- broadlyA 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)https://web.archive.org/web/20150212214621/http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2014/12/pilgrim-roads/salopek-text
Inside”
- A tough scale, sheath, or shell; especially an elytron of a beetle.
- InternetAn 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”
- A component of a sharded distributed database.
- in-plural, singular, slangA piece of crystal methamphetamine.
- uncountableThe plant chard.
“Not Heathpout, or the rarer Bird,
Which Phasis, or Ionia yields,
More pleasing Morsels would afford
Than the fat Olives of my Fields;
Than Shards or Mallows for the Pot,
That keep the loosen’d Body so”
- intransitiveTo fall apart into shards, usually as the result of impact or explosion.
- transitiveTo break (something) into shards.
- Internet, transitiveTo divide (an MMORPG) into several shards, or to establish a shard of one.
Formsshards(plural) · sherd(alternative) · shards(present, singular, third-person) · sharding(participle, present) · sharded(participle, past) · sharded(past)
Source: Wiktionary