shatter

Formsshatters, shattering, shattered

Pluralshatters (some meanings)

1. 1
   verbtransitive

   To break something into pieces with sudden, violent force.

   The explosion shattered windows across the entire block.

   One hard throw can shatter a ceramic pot.

   Similarsmash, break, splinter, fracture

   Note

   Breaking and scattering share one root here. Middle English schateren, "to scatter, dash", is scateren, the ancestor of scatter, with its sk softened to sh. It goes back to Proto-Germanic *skat-, "to smash, scatter", perhaps imitative of the sound. In this transitive use the force is the subject (dynamite, lightning, a high voice) and the broken thing is the object. The intransitive use lets the thing break by itself.

2. 2
   verbintransitive

   To break apart suddenly into many tiny fragments.

   The vase shattered the moment it slipped from her hands.

   Crystal goblets shatter easily if knocked together.

   Similarsmash, break, splinter, disintegrate

3. 3
   verbtransitive

   To break someone's spirit or destroy their emotional strength.

   The diagnosis shattered him for weeks.

   Repeated failures can shatter even the most determined person.

   Similardevastate, crush, break, destroy

   Note

   Most of the work here is done by the past participle: shattered hopes, a shattered constitution, someone shattered in intellect. The image is the broken glass of the physical breaking carried over to mind, health and will, and it was already at home in 1687, when John Norris could call a man's disposition "loose, volatile, and shatter'd." As an adjective it sits easily before a noun or after be.

4. 4
   verbtransitive

   To destroy or completely disable something.

   The recession shattered the local economy.

   A single leak could shatter the company's reputation.

   Similardestroy, ruin, wreck, devastate

5. 5
   nounslanguncountable

   A brittle, glasslike concentrate of cannabis.

   The dispensary sold several grams of shatter that afternoon.

   Shatter breaks cleanly because of its glasslike texture.

   Note

   Cannabis slang for a concentrate that is hard, translucent and amber, and that breaks cleanly like glass when snapped. That brittleness sets it apart from softer extracts such as wax or budder. As a mass noun it is counted by measure: a gram of shatter, not a shatter. Because the term is slang, formal writing is better served by "cannabis concentrate."

6. 6
   verbintransitive

   To fall, sometimes heavily as if to smash, sometimes lightly and dispersed.

   Hailstones shattered down onto the tin roof.

   Petals shatter from the old roses at the lightest touch.

   Similarfall, drop

   Note

   Rain is the usual subject, and the verb almost always takes down: the rain shattered down. Peter Straub, Shana Abé and Devon Monk all use it to make a downpour sound like breaking glass. Sometimes the rain is heavy and stinging, and sometimes it falls in bright, scattered drops. It reads as deliberately vivid, so keep it for descriptive writing rather than plain reporting.

7. 7
   verbintransitive

   Of seeds or grain: to break away and scatter from the plant once ripe.

   If left too long, the barley shatters and scatters across the field.

   Some ancient grains shatter readily, dropping seed before harvest.

   Similarshed

   Note

   Grain growers use it for loss in the field: seed that shatters drops from the plant on its own once ripe, before anyone can harvest it. The 1961 Yearbook of Agriculture warns that alsike seed is small and shatters if it is not handled carefully. Reduced shattering was a key trait selected when crops were domesticated, and growers still judge varieties by how readily they shatter.

8. 8
   nouncountable or uncountable

   A small scattered quantity of something, such as a sprinkling of seeds or a brief shower of rain.

   A shatter of hail bounced off the roof and was gone in seconds.

   Only a shatter of petals remained along the garden path.

   Similarscattering, sprinkling, spatter

   Note

   The noun takes the pattern a shatter of, much like a sprinkling of or a smattering of, and it stretches from the literal to the moral. Gerald Bullett's Marden Fee (1931) has a parson's "tidy shatter of sin". Sophie Overett's The Rabbits (2025) uses "the shatter of rain" for a passing shower. It gives writers an unusual word for a small, uneven amount.

9. 9
   nouncountable or uncountable

   A needle of a pine tree, usually used in the plural or as a mass noun for the needles that collect beneath the trees.

   Gardeners spread pine shatters around the strawberry plants to keep the soil from drying out.

   Her boots sank into the pine shatter that had built up under the old trees.

   Similarneedle

   Note

   A country word, nearly always in the phrase pine shatters, for fallen needles gathered from the woods floor. The Southern Agriculturist of 1834 spreads them as litter in a farmyard. The New England Farmer of 1859 piles them six inches deep over stored crops, and Marguerite Henry's Sea Star (2012) makes them a cushion for pony feet. Shat is a shorter synonym.

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