fragmenting

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle of fragment.

   The old empire was slowly fragmenting into rival states.

   Repeated impacts are fragmenting the asteroid's outer surface.

   Note

   The -ing form works on both sides of the verb. It is intransitive when something breaks apart on its own (the empire was fragmenting) and transitive when something breaks it (impacts are fragmenting the surface). It also carries the verb's specialist uses: fragmenting a file across a disk, or an organism fragmenting to reproduce. As a gerund it takes a direct object (fragmenting the file), while the noun needs of (the fragmenting of the movement).

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The process of breaking apart into separate pieces or fragments.

   The fragmenting of the political movement weakened its overall influence.

   Geologists studied the gradual fragmenting of the ancient seabed.

   Similardisintegration, splintering, breakup, fracturing, splitting

   Oppositeconsolidation, unification, coalescence

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