shatters

Verb

shatter (third-person singular simple present shatters, present participle shattering, simple past and past participle shattered)

1. (ergative) Of brittle solid materials (like glass or ice), to violently break into pieces.
   • The miners used dynamite to shatter rocks.
2. (transitive) To destroy, disable.
3. (transitive) To dispirit or emotionally defeat.
   • to be shattered in intellect
4. (intransitive) 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
5. (obsolete, transitive) 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
6. (intransitive) 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

See all 11 meanings of shatter