shard

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A piece of broken pottery, especially one found in an archaeological dig; a potsherd.
2. n. A fragment of a brittle substance, as of glass or metal.
3. n. A small piece or part: "shards of intense emotional relationships that once existed” ( Maggie Scarf).
4. n. Zoology A tough sheath or covering, such as a shell, scale, or plate.
5. n. Zoology The elytron or outer wing covering of a beetle.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A piece or fragment, as of an earthen vessel; a potsherd; a fragment of any hard material.
2. n. A scale; a shell, as of an egg or a snail.
3. n. The wing-cover or elytrum of a beetle.
4. n. A notch.
5. n. A gap in a fence.
6. n. An opening in a wood.
7. n. A bourn or boundary; a division.
8. n. The leaves of the artichoke and some other vegetables whitened or blanched.
9. n. Dung; excrement; ordure.

Wiktionary

1. n. A piece of broken glass or pottery, especially one found in an archaeological dig.
2. n. A piece of material, especially rock and similar materials, reminding of a broken piece of glass or pottery.
3. n. A tough scale, sheath, or shell; especially an elytron of a beetle.
4. n. online role-playing An instance of an MMORPG that is one of several independent and structurally identical virtual worlds, none of which has so many players as to exhaust a system's resources.
5. v. intransitive To fall apart into shards, usually as the result of impact or explosion.
6. v. transitive To break (something) into shards.
7. v. online role-playing, transitive To divide (an MMORPG) into several shards, or to establish a shard of one.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. obsolete A plant; chard.
2. n. A piece or fragment of an earthen vessel, or a like brittle substance, as the shell of an egg or snail.
3. n. (Zoöl.) The hard wing case of a beetle.
4. n. obsolete A gap in a fence.
5. n. Obs. & R. A boundary; a division.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a broken piece of a brittle artifact