shatter
Syllables: shat·ter/ˈʃætə/
More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations
British/ˈʃatə/
shatter verb: of brittle solid materials (like glass or ice), to violently break into pieces.
Verb
shatter (third-person singular simple present shatters, present participle shattering, simple past and past participle shattered)
- Of brittle solid materials (like glass or ice), to violently break into pieces.
- The miners used dynamite to shatter rocks.
- a high-pitched voice that could shatter glass
- To destroy, disable.
- To dispirit or emotionally defeat.
- to be shattered in intellect
- to have shattered hopes
- Of seeds: to disperse (become dispersed) upon ripening.
- Harvesting is done much as with alfalfa, but alsike seed is small and shatters if it is not handled carefully.1961, Yearbook of Agriculture, page 175
- To scatter about.
- Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year.1637 (date written; published 1638), John Milton, “Lycidas”, in Poems of Mr. John Milton, […], London: […] Ruth Raworth for Humphrey Mosely, […], published 1646, →OCLC
- To fall sometimes connoting hard, as if to smash something, other times light and dispersed.
- Bulletlike rain shattered down. Instantly, Willy was soaked to the skin. Then her right foot skidded out before her, and she felt her balance begin to go. Inevitably and with shocking swiftness came the moment when her body obeyed gravity[…]2006 March 28, Peter Straub, In the Night Room: A Novel, Ballantine Books, →ISBN, page 190
- The heavens opened up, and the rain shattered down. She trailed a finger down the window, following drops of water as they splashed and wept down the pane.2008 April 29, Shana Abé, The Last Mermaid: A Novel, Bantam, →ISBN
Noun
shatter (countable and uncountable, plural shatters)
- A fragment of anything shattered.
- to break a glass into shatters
- it will fall upon the glass of the sconce, and break it into shatters1731 (date written; published 1745), [Jonathan] Swift, Directions to Servants […], London: […] R[obert] Dodsley, […], and M. Cooper, […], →OCLC
- A (pine) needle.
- My usual habit is, as soon as I get my wheat trodden out, and my corn secured in the fall, to litter my farm yard (and if my cultivation is far off, I select some warm spot near the field) with leaves and pine shatters, (preferring the former) ...1834, The Southern Agriculturist and Register of Rural Affairs: Adapted to the Southern Section of the United States, page 421
- They are preserved in cellars, or out of doors in kilns. The method of fixing them is to raise the ground a few inches, where they are to be placed, and cover with pine shatters to the depth of six inches or more.1859, Samuel W. Cole, The New England Farmer, page 277
- Synonyms:
- shat
- A scattering, a smattering; a quantity of something scattered, like a sprinkling of seeds or a shower of rain.
- There's a tidy shatter of sin already in the Fee, says Parson. Ah, says I, but us can't all be saints like yourself, Parson.1931, Gerald Bullett, Marden Fee, page 99
- [He] steps out into the rain. It takes his eyes a moment to adjust, to get used to the misty glow of the moon above them, to take in the wild look of their yard, and the shatter of rain. The insects have escaped it at least, hidden beneath the cover of grass and foliage, beneath the low-hanging...2025 January 7, Sophie Overett, The Rabbits, Pushkin Press, →ISBN
- A form of concentrated cannabis.
Proper noun capitalized: Shatter
Shatter
- A surname.
shatter meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Malayalam and Kannada
shatter in Tamil
- நொறுக்கு
shatter in Urdu
- to shatter
- ٹوٹنا ṭūṭnā
shatter in Malayalam
- splinter, smash, break
- തകരുക, ഛിന്നഭിന്നമാകുക, കുലയുക, ചിതറുക, തുണ്ടം തുണ്ടമായി വേർപെടുക, പകയുക
- wreck, destroy, ruin
- തകർക്കുക, നശിപ്പിക്കുക, ഇല്ലാതാക്കുക, ഛിന്നഭിന്നമാക്കുക, തെറിപ്പിക്കുക, തകർത്തുകളയുക
- shock, devastate, stun
- തകർക്കുക, ഞെട്ടിപ്പിക്കുക, നടുക്കുക, ആഘാതമേല്പിക്കുക, ക്ലേശിപ്പിക്കുക, അന്ധാളിപ്പിക്കുക
shatter in Kannada
- ದೋರುಹೋಗು, ಒಡೆ, ನೆಮ್ಮದಿ ಕಳೆ
More languagesFewer languages
- shatter in Sanskrit
- रुजति rujati
- shatter in Persian
- کراشیدن kerâšidan
Examples of shatter in a sentence
- The old oak tree has been shattered by lightning.
- to have a shattered constitution
- a man of a loose, volatile, and shatter'd humour1687, John Norris, Of Seriousness:
- I don't mean to shatter your ego, but this ain't the first time I've had gun pointed at me.1994, Quentin Tarantino, Roger Avary, Pulp Fiction, spoken by Jules (Samuel L. Jackson):
- The marriage, of course, was long broken but Munoz knew that asking her for a divorce would shatter her.2006, A. W. Maldonado, Luis Muñoz Marín: Puerto Rico's democratic revolution,, page 163:
- He learned forward […] and the sleeting rain shattered down like diamonds from the brim of his hat.2015 July 7, Devon Monk, Cold Copper, Penguin, →ISBN, page 36:
Synonyms of shatter
Forms of shatter
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | shatters |
| present participle | shattering |
| past participle | shattered |
| past | shattered |
| Noun | |
| plural | shatters |
Origin of shatter
From Middle English schateren (“to scatter, dash”), an assibilated form of Middle English scateren ("to scatter"; see scatter), from Old English scaterian, from Proto-Germanic *skat- (“to smash, scatter”), perhaps ultimately imitative. Cognate with Dutch schateren (“to burst out laughing”), Low German schateren, Albanian shkatërroj (“to destroy, devastate”). Doublet of scatter.
Words formed from shatter
Phrases with shatter
Words that rhyme with shatter
Questions about shatter
- What does shatter mean?
- Shatter means of brittle solid materials (like glass or ice), to violently break into pieces.
- What is shatter in Tamil?
- Shatter in Tamil is நொறுக்கு. See Shatter meaning in Tamil.
- How do you use shatter in a sentence?
- The old oak tree has been shattered by lightning.
- What part of speech is shatter?
- Shatter can be a verb, a noun or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce shatter?
- Shatter is pronounced /ˈʃætə/ (UK).
- What is the past tense of shatter?
- The past tense of shatter is shattered.
Words near shatter in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: shatter (page history and authors); Shatter (page history and authors); shatter (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ٹوٹنا (Urdu) (page history and authors); shatter (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); shatter (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-shatter.wav, en-us-shatter.ogg.
Cite this entry: “shatter.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/shatter. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.