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Shatter
Definitions
- 1 A surname.
- 1 A fragment of anything shattered. archaic, countable
"to break a glass into shatters"
- 2 A (pine) needle. countable, uncountable
"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) ..."
- 3 A scattering, a smattering; a quantity of something scattered, like a sprinkling of seeds or a shower of rain. countable, uncountable
"There's a tidy shatter of sin already in the Fee, says Parson. Ah, says I, but us can't all be saints like yourself, Parson."
- 4 A form of concentrated cannabis. slang, uncountable
- 1 To violently break something into pieces. transitive
"The miners used dynamite to shatter rocks."
- 2 break into many pieces wordnet
- 3 To destroy or disable something. transitive
- 4 cause to break into many pieces wordnet
- 5 To smash, or break into tiny pieces. intransitive
Show 5 more definitions
- 6 damage or destroy wordnet
- 7 To dispirit or emotionally defeat. transitive
"to be shattered in intellect"
- 8 Of seeds: to disperse (become dispersed) upon ripening. intransitive
"Harvesting is done much as with alfalfa, but alsike seed is small and shatters if it is not handled carefully."
- 9 To scatter about. obsolete, transitive
"Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year."
- 10 To fall sometimes connoting hard, as if to smash something, other times light and dispersed. intransitive
"Bulletlike rain shattered down. Instantly, Willy was soaked to the skin. Then her right foot skidded out before her, and she felt her balance begin to go. Inevitably and with shocking swiftness came the moment when her body obeyed gravity[…]"
Etymology
From Middle English schateren (“to scatter, dash”), an assibilated form of Middle English scateren ("to scatter"; see scatter), from Old English scaterian, from Proto-Germanic *skat- (“to smash, scatter”), perhaps ultimately imitative. Cognate with Dutch schateren (“to burst out laughing”), Low German schateren, Albanian shkatërroj (“to destroy, devastate”). Doublet of scatter.
From Middle English schateren (“to scatter, dash”), an assibilated form of Middle English scateren ("to scatter"; see scatter), from Old English scaterian, from Proto-Germanic *skat- (“to smash, scatter”), perhaps ultimately imitative. Cognate with Dutch schateren (“to burst out laughing”), Low German schateren, Albanian shkatërroj (“to destroy, devastate”). Doublet of scatter.
See also for "shatter"
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