shatter

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. v. To cause to break or burst suddenly into pieces, as with a violent blow.
2. v. To damage seriously; disable: His health was shattered by the disease.
3. v. To cause the destruction or ruin of; destroy: The outcome of the conflict shattered our dreams of peace and prosperity.
4. v. To break into pieces; smash or burst. See Synonyms at break.
5. n. The act of shattering.
6. n. The condition of being shattered.
7. n. A splintered or fragmented condition. Often used in the plural: a rare piece of porcelain now in shatters.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. To scatter; disperse.
2. To break or rend in pieces, as by a single blow; rend, split, or rive into splinters, flinders, or fragments.
3. To break; disorder; derange; impair; destroy: as, shattered nerves; a constitution shattered by dissipation.
4. Synonyms Smash, etc. See dash.
5. To scatter; fly apart; be broken or rent into fragments.
6. n. One part of many into which anything is 'broken; a fragment: used chiefly in the plural, and in the phrase to break or rend into shatters.
7. n. A shattered or impaired state.
8. Of cereals, to scatter the grain on account of overripeness.
9. Of soils, to fall into flakes or meal-like particles from the action of the weather instead of harsh angular particles as when broken by implements.

Wiktionary

1. v. transitive to violently break something into pieces.
2. v. transitive to destroy or disable something.
3. v. intransitive to smash, or break into tiny pieces.
4. v. transitive to dispirit or emotionally defeat
5. n. archaic A fragment of anything shattered.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. v. To break at once into many pieces; to dash, burst, or part violently into fragments; to rend into splinters
2. v. To disorder; to derange; to render unsound.
3. v. obsolete To scatter about.
4. v. To be broken into fragments; to fall or crumble to pieces by any force applied.
5. n. A fragment of anything shattered; -- used chiefly or soley in the phrase into shatters.

WordNet 3.0

1. v. break into many pieces
2. v. damage or destroy
3. v. cause to break into many pieces