1.
[syn: shard, sherd, fragment]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Sherd \Sherd\, n.
A fragment; -- now used only in composition, as in potsherd.
See Shard.
[1913 Webster]
The thigh . . . which all in sherds it drove.
--Chapman.
[1913 Webster] Shereef
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Shard \Shard\ (sh[aum]rd), n. [AS. sceard, properly a p. p. from
the root of scearn to shear, to cut; akin to D. schaard a
fragment, G. scharte a notch, Icel. skar[eth]. See Shear,
and cf. Sherd.] [Written also sheard, and sherd.]
1. A piece or fragment of an earthen vessel, or a like
brittle substance, as the shell of an egg or snail.
--Shak.
[1913 Webster]
The precious dish
Broke into shards of beauty on the board. --E.
Arnold.
[1913 Webster]
2. (Zool.) The hard wing case of a beetle.
[1913 Webster]
They are his shards, and he their beetle. --Shak.
[1913 Webster]
3. A gap in a fence. [Obs.] --Stanyhurst.
[1913 Webster]
4. A boundary; a division. [Obs. & R.] --Spenser.
[1913 Webster]
WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):
sherd
n 1: a broken piece of a brittle artifact [syn: shard,
sherd, fragment]