shredded

Verb

shred (third-person singular simple present shreds, present participle shredding, simple past shredded, past participle shredded or shred)

1. (transitive) To cut or tear (something) into long, narrow pieces or strips.
   • Take a little grated Bread, ſome Beef-ſuet, yolks of hard Eggs, three Anchovies, a bit of an Onion, Salt and Pepper, Tyme and VVinter-ſavory, tvvelve Oyſters, ſome Nutmeg grated; mix all theſe together, and ſhred them very fine, and vvork them up vvith ravv Eggs like a paſte, and ſtuff your Mutton...1729, E[liza] S[mith], “To Stuff a Shoulder or Leg of Mutton with Oysters”, in The Compleat Housewife: Or, Accomplished Gentlewoman’s Companion: […], 3rd edition, London: […] J[ohn] Pemberton, […]...
2. (specifically, transitive) To destroy (a document) by cutting or tearing into strips or small pieces that cannot easily be read, especially using a shredder.
   • But then there was the awkward incident of the tearing of the writs. Nigel, to whom a lie was an impossibility, had to admit that with his own hands he had shredded those august documents.1905–1906, Arthur Conan Doyle, “How Nigel was Tried by the Abbot of Waverley”, in Sir Nigel, London: Smith, Elder & Co., […], published January 1906, →OCLC, page 53
3. (specifically, transitive) To cut (fruit peel, a vegetable, etc.) into thin strips that curl.
4. (transitive) To separate (something) into small portions.
   • Hunger was shred into atomies in every farthing porringer of husky chips of potato, fried with some reluctant drops of oil.1859, Charles Dickens, “The Wine-shop”, in A Tale of Two Cities, London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC, book I (Recalled to Life), page 19
5. (figuratively, slang, transitive) To reduce (something) by a large percentage; to slash.
   • Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder, never wanted his customers to worry about shipping – about how much it cost, or about how long it would take – and he relentlessly shredded delivery times to make shipping incidental to the purchasing experience.2019 November 21, Samanth Subramanian, “How our home delivery habit reshaped the world”, in Katharine Viner, editor, The Guardian, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the...
6. (figuratively, slang, transitive) Chiefly in rock and heavy metal: to play (a musical instrument (especially a guitar) or a piece of music) very fast and in a way that requires technical skill.

See all 23 meanings of shred