shatter

English

Wikipedia

Etymology

Middle English scateren. Cognate with Albanian shkatërroj (“to destroy, devastate”).

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ˈʃæt.ə(r)/
• Rhymes: -ætə(r)

Verb

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.
2. (transitive) to destroy or disable something.
3. (intransitive) to smash, or break into tiny pieces.
4. (transitive) to dispirit or emotionally defeat
   • 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.

Translations

to violently break something into pieces

• Finnish: pirstoa (fi)
• French: fracasser (fr), réduire en miettes (fr)
• Portuguese: estilhaçar (pt)
• Russian: разбивать (ru) (razbivátʹ) impf., разбить (ru) (razbítʹ) pf.

• Serbo-Croatian: smrskati (sh)
• Spanish: astillar (es), estrellar (es), quebrantar (es), hacer añicos (es)
• Swedish: krossa (sv)

to smash, or break into tiny pieces

• Dutch: verbrijzelen (nl)
• Finnish: pirstoa (fi)
• French: éclater (fr), voler en éclats (fr)
• Portuguese: estilhaçar (pt)

• Russian: разбиваться (ru) (razbivátʹsja) impf., разбиться (ru) (razbítʹsja) pf.
• Serbo-Croatian: smrskati (sh)
• Spanish: astillar (es), estrellar (es), hacer añicos (es)
• Swedish: krossa (sv), krascha (sv), krasa (sv)

Noun

shatter (plural shatters)

1. (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?)

Anagrams

• hatters
• threats