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A piece or fragment of an earthen vessel, or a like brittle substance, as the shell of an egg or snail. Shak. The precious dish Broke into shards of beauty on the board. E. Arnold.

To break at once into many pieces; to dash, burst, or part violently into fragments; to rend into splinters; as, an explosion shatters a rock or a bomb; too much steam shatters a boiler; an oak is shattered by lightning. A monarchy was shattered to pieces, and divided amongst revolted subjects. Locke.…

, ignited with a fuse or by percussion, by means of which the projectile is burst and its fragments scattered. See Bomb.

A fragment; -- now used only in composition, as in potsherd. See Shard. The thigh . . . which all in sherds it drove. Chapman.

A thin piece or fragment; specifically, one of the scales or pieces of the woody part of flax removed by the operation of breaking.

A train of vein material mixed with rubbish; fragments of ore which have become separated by the action of water or the weather, and serve to direct in the discovery of mines. [Written also shode.]

In general, a fragment; a piece; a particle. Shak.

A long piece cut ot rent off; a sharp, slender fragment; a splinter.

Fragments; atoms; finders. [Prov. Eng.] Smash the bottle to smithers. Tennyson.

Fragments; atoms; smithers. [Colloq.] W. Black.

ing bitten off, seized, or obtained by a single quick movement; hence, a bite, morsel, or fragment; a scrap. He's a nimble fellow, And alike skilled in every liberal science, As having certain snaps of all. B. Jonson.

A small piece, fragment, or quantity; a broken part; a scrap. We have often little snatches of sunshine. Spectator. Leave me your snatches, and yield me a direct answer. Shak.

A chip or fragment, especially a chip of stone as struck off the block by the hammer, having at least one feather-edge.

A splinter or fragment, as of wood or stone. See Spall.

Proof against the splinters, or fragments, of bursting shells.

A piece that is split off, or made thin, by splitting; a splinter; a fragment.

A square piece or fragment. He bolted his food down his capacious throat in squares of three inches. Sir W. Scott.

To burst in pieces by striking against something; to dash into fragments. Like a vessel of glass she stove and sank. Longfellow.

A sloping heap of fragments of rock lying at the foot of a precipice.

d and smooth, distinguished from macadam road by its firm foundation of large stones with fragments of stone wedged tightly, in the interstices; as, telford pavement, road, etc.