Word
shard
US/ˈʃɑɹd/
UK/ʃˈɑːd/
Definition
n. a small, sharp piece of something that has been broken. In computing, it can also mean a small piece of data or a part of a larger system.
n. a small, sharp fragment of a broken object; in a technical context, a discrete portion of a larger data set or a component of a distributed system.
Examples
“A shard of glass cut my hand.”
“The developer split the large database into smaller shards to improve the website's performance.”
“After the glass shattered, a single shard embedded itself in the wooden frame, leaving a small but deep puncture that required immediate attention.”
Examples
simple
“A shard of glass cut my hand.”
contextual
“The developer split the large database into smaller shards to improve the website's performance.”
complex
“After the glass shattered, a single shard embedded itself in the wooden frame, leaving a small but deep puncture that required immediate attention.”
Etymology
From 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.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Scan code
englishreference.com/q/shard