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Wiktionary

shatter

Contents

EnglishEdit

 
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EtymologyEdit

From Middle English schateren (“to scatter, dash”), an assibilated form of Middle English scateren ("to scatter"; see scatter), from Old English *scaterian (possibly attested as Old English *sċeacerian in tōsċeacerian (“to waste, devastate, scatter”), from Proto-Germanic *skat- (“to smash, scatter”). Cognate with Dutch schateren (“to burst out laughing”), Low German schateren, Albanian shkatërroj (“to destroy, devastate”).

PronunciationEdit

  • IPA(key): /ˈʃæt.ə(ɹ)/
  • Audio (US)
    		(file)
  • Rhymes: -ætə(r)

VerbEdit

 
A lightglobe shatters after it is shot with a pistol

shatter (third-person singular simple present shatters, present participle shattering, simple past and past participle shattered)

  1. (transitive) to violently break something into pieces.
    The miners used dynamite to shatter rocks.
    a high-pitched voice that could shatter glass
    The old oak tree has been shattered by lightning.
  2. (transitive) to destroy or disable something.
  3. (intransitive) to smash, or break into tiny pieces.
  4. (transitive) to dispirit or emotionally defeat
    to be shattered in intellect; to have shattered hopes, or a shattered constitution
    • 1984 Martyn Burke, The commissar's report, p36
      Your death will shatter him. Which is what I want. Actually, I would prefer to kill him.
    • 1992 Rose Gradym "Elvis Cures Teen's Brain Cancer!" Weekly World News, Vol. 13, No. 38 (23 June, 1992), p41
      A CAT scan revealed she had an inoperable brain tumor. The news shattered Michele's mother.
    • 2006 A. W. Maldonado, Luis Muñoz Marín: Puerto Rico's democratic revolution, p163
      The marriage, of course, was long broken but Munoz knew that asking her for a divorce would shatter her.
    • (Can we date this quote?) Norris
      a man of a loose, volatile, and shattered humour
  5. (obsolete) To scatter about.
    • (Can we date this quote?) John Milton
      Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year.

TranslationsEdit

NounEdit

shatter (countable and uncountable, plural shatters)

  1. (countable, archaic) A fragment of anything shattered.
    to break a glass into shatters
    (Can we find and add a quotation of Jonathan Swift to this entry?)
  2. A (pine) needle.
    Synonym: shat (Maryland, Delaware)
    • 1834, The Southern Agriculturist and Register of Rural Affairs: Adapted to the Southern Section of the United States, page 421:
      My usual habit is, as soon as I get my wheat trodden out, and my corn secured in the fall, to litter my farm yard (and if my cultivation is far off, I select some warm spot near the field) with leaves and pine shatters, (preferring the former) ...
    • 1859, Samuel W. Cole, The New England Farmer, page 277:
      They are preserved in cellars, or out of doors in kilns. The method of fixing them is to raise the ground a few inches, where they are to be placed, and cover with pine shatters to the depth of six inches or more.
    • 2012, Marguerite Henry, Sea Star: Orphan of Chincoteague, Simon and Schuster (ISBN 9781442488045), page 95:
      Grandpa snapped his fingers. "Consarn it all!" he sputtered. "I plumb forgot the pine shatters. Paul and Maureen, you gather some nice smelly pine shatters from off 'n the floor of the woods. Nothin' makes a better cushion for pony feet as pine shatters ..."
  3. (uncountable, slang) A form of concentrated cannabis.

AnagramsEdit

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