shatter

See also: Shatter

English

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.

Pronunciation

  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈʃæt.ə(ɹ)/
  • (General American) IPA(key): /ˈʃæt.ɚ/
  • Audio (US):(file)
  • Rhymes: -ætə(ɹ)
  • Hyphenation: shat‧ter

Verb

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
    to have a shattered constitution
    • 1687, John Norris, Of Seriousness:
      a man of a loose, volatile, and shatter'd humour
    • 1984, Martyn Burke, The commissar's report,, page 36:
      Your death will shatter him. Which is what I want. Actually, I would prefer to kill him.
    • 1992 June 23, Rose Gradym, “Elvis Cures Teen's Brain Cancer!”, in Weekly World News, volume 13, number 38, page 41:
      A CAT scan revealed she had an inoperable brain tumor. The news shattered Michele's mother.
    • 1994, Quentin Tarantino, Roger Avary, Pulp Fiction, spoken by Jules (Samuel L. Jackson):
      I don't mean to shatter your ego, but this ain't the first time I've had gun pointed at me.
    • 2006, A. W. Maldonado, Luis Muñoz Marín: Puerto Rico's democratic revolution,, page 163:
      The marriage, of course, was long broken but Munoz knew that asking her for a divorce would shatter her.
  5. (intransitive, agriculture) Of seeds: to disperse (become dispersed) upon ripening.
    • 1961, Yearbook of Agriculture, page 175:
      Harvesting is done much as with alfalfa, but alsike seed is small and shatters if it is not handled carefully.
  6. (transitive, obsolete) To scatter about.
  7. (intransitive, of rain) To fall sometimes connoting hard, as if to smash something, other times light and dispersed.
    • 2006 March 28, Peter Straub, In the Night Room: A Novel, Ballantine Books, →ISBN, page 190:
      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 […]
    • 2008 April 29, Shana Abé, The Last Mermaid: A Novel, Bantam, →ISBN:
      The heavens opened up, and the rain shattered down. She trailed a finger down the window, following drops of water as they splashed and wept down the pane.
    • 2015 July 7, Devon Monk, Cold Copper, Penguin, →ISBN, page 36:
      He learned forward […] and the sleeting rain shattered down like diamonds from the brim of his hat.
    • 2022 May 28, Ian Hey, No Lift and No Stairs, Book Guild Publishing, →ISBN:
      ... rain shattered down on the pub windows, […]

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Translations

Noun

shatter (countable and uncountable, plural shatters)

  1. (countable, archaic) A fragment of anything shattered.
    to break a glass into shatters
    • 1731 (date written; published 1745), [Jonathan] Swift, Directions to Servants […], London: […] R[obert] Dodsley, […], and M. Cooper, […], →OCLC:
      it will fall upon the glass of the sconce, and break it into shatters
  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, 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. A scattering, a smattering; a quantity of something scattered, like a sprinkling of seeds or a shower of rain.
    • 1931, Gerald Bullett, Marden Fee, page 99:
      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.
    • 2025 January 7, Sophie Overett, The Rabbits, Pushkin Press, →ISBN:
      [He] steps out into the rain. It takes his eyes a moment to adjust, to get used to the misty glow of the moon above them, to take in the wild look of their yard, and the shatter of rain. The insects have escaped it at least, hidden beneath the cover of grass and foliage, beneath the low-hanging branches of the jacarandas and poincianas. Birds huddle there as well, […]
  4. (uncountable, slang) A form of concentrated cannabis.

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