Library / English Dictionary

SHATTER

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Break into many pieces

Example:

The wine glass shattered

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Hypernyms (to "shatter" is one way to...):

burst; bust (break open or apart suddenly and forcefully)

Sentence frames:

Something ----s
Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

Sentence example:

The glass tubes shatter

Derivation:

shattering (the act of breaking something into small pieces)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Cause to break into many pieces

Example:

shatter the plate

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Hypernyms (to "shatter" is one way to...):

break (destroy the integrity of; usually by force; cause to separate into pieces or fragments)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

Sentence example:

They shatter the glass tubes

Derivation:

shattering (the act of breaking something into small pieces)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Damage or destroy

Example:

The news of her husband's death shattered her life

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Hypernyms (to "shatter" is one way to...):

damage (inflict damage upon)

Sentence frame:

Something ----s something

Credits

 Context examples: 

For the moment her divinity was shattered.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

The man’s skull had been shattered by a blow from a poker delivered from behind.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The strongest tornado connection was with strong, persistent La Niñas, consistent with the Super Outbreak of 1974 and the record-shattering tornado outbreaks of 2011, both of which occurred during strong La Niñas.

(Ocean temperatures may hold key to predicting tornado outbreaks, NOAA)

This series of events can be likened to the meteor blast that shattered windows in Chelyabinsk, Russia, last year.

(NASA Mars weathercam helps find big new crater, NASA)

I have lived a living death which has left me an old and shattered man when I am but in my fortieth year.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

A study modeled fracture chain reactions and water amounts necessary to repeat a rare, epic collapse such as the 2002 shattering of the iconic shelf "Larsen B."

(Reframing the dangers Antarctica's meltwater ponds pose to ice shelves and sea level, National Science Foundation)

Away with it! and opening the heavy window with one wrench of his terrible hand, he flung out the glass, which was shattered into a thousand pieces on the stones of the courtyard far below.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

"There was an Arctic Report Card released last week. It said while 2017 saw fewer records shattered than in 2016, the Arctic shows no sign of returning to the reliably frozen region it was decades ago.

(World Meteorological Org.: Arctic Warming Appears Irreversible, VOA)

Since much of the material being flung out from the shattered star has been heated by shock waves − similar to sonic booms from supersonic planes − passing through it, the remnant glows strongly in X-ray light.

(Chandra Movie Captures Expanding Debris from a Stellar Explosion, NASA)

Taken with the spacecraft’s Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) on April 7-8 from a distance of about 69 million miles (111 million kilometers), the images shatter New Horizons’ own record for the closest-ever views of this KBO in November 2015, when New Horizons detected JR1 from 170 million miles (280 million kilometers) away.

(New Horizons Collects First Science on a Post-Pluto Object, NASA)