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Shard dates back to Old English (where it was spelled sceard) and is related to Old English scieran, meaning "to cut." English speakers have adopted the modernized shard spelling for most uses, but archaeologists prefer to spell the word sherd when referring to the ancient fragments of pottery (sometimes referred to specifically as potsherds) they unearth. While shard initially referred to exactly such items, today the word is also used more broadly to encompass slivers of intangible concepts. A baseless accusation may be made "without a shard of evidence," and fans of the losing team may "cling to a shard of hope" until the final score. The utility of shard is its, ahem, point.
Examples of shard in a Sentence
The Arizona Republic, 10 Apr. 2024
In the leafcutter ant exhibit, visitors can watch half a million tiny ants scurry industriously to and fro, hefting shards of leaves above their heads like tiny sails.
—Nathaniel Scharping, Discover Magazine, 4 Apr. 2024
At both castle locations, the researchers also found shards of pottery that date from both the Iron and Middle Ages, Erdoğan said.
—Irene Wright, Miami Herald, 1 Apr. 2024
Martin Scorsese’s film Killers of the Flower Moon presents an abysmal shard of American history, confronting our conscience with the collective experience of Indigenous People globally.
—Nina Corcoran, Pitchfork, 13 Jan. 2024
All of the main structures of al-Shifa were blasted and blackened, walls missing, shards of cement flooring pulling against twisted rebar.
—Lorenzo Tugnoli, Washington Post, 1 Apr. 2024
Its narrow streets are crowded with small, irregular houses that have tiny gardens or mosaic walls out front made of stained glass and mirror shards.
—Mary Norris, The New Yorker, 18 Mar. 2024
In the ancient world, they were made from all manner of materials, such as shells, bone, teeth, ivory, glass, precious stones, and even pottery shards.
—Sean Mowbray, Discover Magazine, 29 Feb. 2024
But his haughty words, broken like shards of ancient pottery, and spoken in Fon, the Dahomey language still used by roughly one-sixth of Benin’s population, flavor the whole film with mysterious unease.
—Jessica Kiang, Variety, 18 Feb. 2024
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'shard.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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“Shard.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/shard. Accessed 18 Apr. 2024.
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shard
noun
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