shard
Part of speech: noun
verb
Morphological type: simple
Topics: computing
databases
engineering
games
gaming
mathematics
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
sciences
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.
Inflected forms:
form: shards
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: sherd
pos: noun
tags: alternative
form: shards
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: sharding
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: sharded
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: sharded
pos: verb
tags: past
form: sherd
pos: verb
tags: alternative
Senses:
gloss: A piece of broken glass or pottery, especially one found in an archaeological dig.
pos: noun
examples: 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.
gloss: A piece of material, especially rock and similar materials, reminding of a broken piece of glass or pottery.
pos: noun
tags: broadly
examples: 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 its exhibit hall, behind panes of glass, in a white-lit lab, a team of restorers works on an ancient Byzantine floor: 44 square yards of stone shards rescued from Lot’s Cave Monastery.
gloss: A tough scale, sheath, or shell; especially an elytron of a beetle.
pos: noun
gloss: An 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.
pos: noun
tags: Internet
examples: 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 the jewel's magic, even as it lay shattered upon the floor of Mondain's castle. For, within each shattered remnant of the jewel, dwelled a perfect likeness of Sosaria. Thus is the world in which you are born, live, and die. Brittania, that was once Sosaria, now exists as a thousand worlds, each with its own peoples, history and destiny. This Brittania is but one of many in the multiverse that is... ...ULTIMA ONLINE." - Intro cinematic to the game, written by Michael Morlan https://web.archive.org/web/20080706122926/http://michael-morlan.net/pages/production/prod_uo.htm
gloss: A component of a sharded distributed database.
pos: noun
gloss: A piece of crystal methamphetamine.
pos: noun
tags: in-plural
singular
slang
gloss: To fall apart into shards, usually as the result of impact or explosion.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
gloss: To break (something) into shards.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
gloss: To divide (an MMORPG) into several shards, or to establish a shard of one.
pos: verb
tags: Internet
transitive
Derived words: potsherd
shardlike
shardy
reshard
unsharded
Translations:
lang: Afrikaans
word: skerf
lang: Arabic
word: كِسْرَة
roman: kisra
lang: Bulgarian
word: чиреп
roman: čirep
lang: Catalan
word: padellàs
lang: Czech
word: střep
lang: Danish
word: skår
lang: Dutch
word: scherf
lang: Finnish
word: siru
lang: Finnish
word: sirpale
lang: Finnish
word: pirstale
lang: French
word: éclat
lang: French
word: tesson
lang: Galician
word: lasca
lang: Galician
word: cacheno
lang: German
word: Scherbe
lang: Ancient Greek
word: ὄστρακον
roman: óstrakon
lang: Hebrew
word: רְסִיס
roman: r'sis
lang: Hungarian
word: cserépdarab
lang: Hungarian
word: szilánk
lang: Ingrian
word: luhka
lang: Italian
word: frammento
lang: Italian
word: coccio
lang: Kapampangan
word: catapa
lang: Kapampangan
word: katapa
lang: Latin
word: testa
lang: Macedonian
word: откршок
roman: otkršok
lang: Macedonian
word: срча
roman: srča
lang: Macedonian
word: цреп
roman: crep
lang: Māori
word: pāra
lang: Māori
word: kuru
lang: Māori
word: rutunga
lang: Norwegian Bokmål
word: skår
lang: Norwegian Nynorsk
word: skar
lang: Persian
word: شکاله
roman: šekâle
lang: Persian
word: سفاله
roman: sefâle
lang: Polish
word: skorupa
lang: Polish
word: odłamek
lang: Portuguese
word: caco
lang: Portuguese
word: estilhaço
lang: Romanian
word: ciob
lang: Russian
word: оско́лок
roman: oskólok
lang: Russian
word: черепо́к
roman: čerepók
lang: Serbo-Croatian
word: krhotina
lang: Slovak
word: črep
lang: Slovene
word: črepinja
lang: Lower Sorbian
word: crjop
lang: Spanish
word: casco
lang: Spanish
word: añicos
lang: Spanish
word: esquirla
lang: Spanish
word: tiesto
lang: Swedish
word: skärva
lang: Tagalog
word: bubog
lang: Tocharian B
word: ṣat
lang: Ukrainian
word: оско́лок
roman: oskólok
lang: Walloon
word: testea
lang: Walloon
word: xhervea