fragment
noun
frag·ment
| \ ˈfrag-mənt
\
\
Definition of fragment
(Entry 1 of 2)
: a part broken off, detached, or incomplete
The dish lay in fragments on the floor.
fragment
verb
frag·ment
| \ ˈfrag-ˌment
\
\
fragmented;
fragmenting;
fragments
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Synonyms for fragment
Synonyms: Noun
Synonyms: Verb
break, break up, bust, disintegrate, dismember, disrupt, fracture, rive
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Examples of fragment in a Sentence
Noun
The dish lay in fragments on the floor. I could only hear fragments of their conversation.Verb
The party is fragmenting into warring factions. These issues are fragmenting our society. The property is being fragmented into subdivisions.
Recent Examples on the Web: Noun
Eventually, those will be compared with isotopes found in the bone fragments of California grizzlies stored in museum collections. — Brent Crane, Discover Magazine, "Grizzly Bears Might Return to California. Is the State Ready?," 12 Mar. 2019 The fragments detected in Colorado water are considerably smaller, scientists said. — Bruce Finley, The Denver Post, "Scientists discover it’s “raining plastic” from metro Denver to high in Rocky Mountain National Park," 16 Aug. 2019 Built around a soldier, a couple and their (yes) reincarnated baby, the fragments here include notes and an outline, as well as drafts of early pages. — David L. Ulin, Los Angeles Times, "Inside the archives — and mind — of sci-fi legend Philip K. Dick," 16 Aug. 2019 The research demonstrated the fragments may become airborne in a way similar to dust, pollen and fine particulate matter from vehicle exhausts. — Frank Jordans, Anchorage Daily News, "The atmosphere is carrying microplastics into the Arctic, scientists say," 15 Aug. 2019 The research demonstrated the fragments may become airborne in a way similar to dust, pollen and fine particulate matter from vehicle exhausts. — Washington Post, "Pure as snow? Scientists say air carrying plastics to Arctic," 15 Aug. 2019 The fragment is a long thin strip of parchment on which a few letters per line are visible, according to a press release from the Austria's Academy of Sciences. — Jason Daley, Smithsonian, "Fragment of ‘The Rose Thorn,’ a Poem About a Talking Vulva, Dated to the 1300s," 3 Aug. 2019 The departure of Aaron Ramsey to Juventus on a free transfer earlier this summer has left the Frenchman as the only remaining fragment of the club's dwindling backbone. — SI.com, "Laurent Koscielny: Why Arsenal Should Do Everything in Their Power to Keep Him at the Emirates," 11 July 2019 This technique involves shooting a laser at the skull fragments to generate tiny particles that can be ionized. — Stephanie Demarco, latimes.com, "210,000-year-old skull in Greece is earliest sign of modern humans in Europe or Asia," 10 July 2019Recent Examples on the Web: Verb
These projects are destroying core critical tiger habitats, fragmenting the reserves. — Mayank Aggarwal, Quartz India, "Tigers in a southern reserve are victims of India’s aggressive push towards nuclear energy," 15 July 2019 Exploits most commonly work by fragmenting a queue reserved for retransmitting TCP packets. — Dan Goodin, Ars Technica, "New vulnerabilities may let hackers remotely SACK Linux and FreeBSD systems," 18 June 2019 The deaths of a pack’s more experienced alphas can fragment its social structure enough to disrupt hunting, breeding, rearing, and territory defense. — Josh Adler, National Geographic, "Making peace in the Golan Heights—between humans and wolves," 11 Apr. 2019 So the information intelligence agencies are working with is fragmented at best. — Jennifer Williams, Vox, "Osama bin Laden’s son, the “Crown Prince of Terror,” is dead. Or is he?," 1 Aug. 2019 Mountaineers say climbing routes in the Himalayas will get tougher as glaciers that keep the rocks together are now retreating, fragmenting and melting. — Eric Niiler, WIRED, "Cold War Spy Photos Show How Fast Himalaya Glaciers Are Melting," 19 June 2019 This idea, based on evidence collected during the Apollo program, is that some 4.5 billion years ago, a body about the size of Mars (referred to as Theia) hit Earth, fragmenting itself and ejecting part of Earth’s crust and mantle into space. — Erica Jawin, Scientific American, "Apollo’s Bounty: The Science of the Moon Rocks," 2 July 2019 Over time, the DNA is fragmented into small pieces, and its sequence becomes riddled with nucleotide deletions and errors. — Quanta Magazine, "Ancient DNA Yields Snapshots of Vanished Ecosystems," 29 May 2019 The strategy and challenges The Indian dairy market is fragmented, thanks to the difficulties of building an extensive pan-India procurement and distribution network. — Sangeeta Tanwar, Quartz India, "Ramdev’s Patanjali must move past pricing to win India’s consumer goods war," 3 June 2019These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'fragment.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
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More Definitions for fragment
fragment
noun
English Language Learners Definition of fragment
(Entry 1 of 2)
: a broken part or piece of something
: an incomplete part
fragment
verb
English Language Learners Definition of fragment (Entry 2 of 2)
: to break or to cause (something) to break into parts or pieces
See the full definition for fragment in the English Language Learners Dictionary