Definition of "shard" [shard]

• A piece of broken pottery, especially one found in an archaeological dig; a potsherd. (noun)
• A fragment of a brittle substance, as of glass or metal. (noun)
• A small piece or part: "shards of intense emotional relationships that once existed” ( Maggie Scarf). (noun)
• Zoology A tough sheath or covering, such as a shell, scale, or plate. (noun)
• Zoology The elytron or outer wing covering of a beetle. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "After the bombing the Israelis had indeed bulldozed everything so that I was able to find just one piece of evidence that beauty had flourished on this hillside, a shard from a piece of colorful tile, about the size of my hand."
• "The recent world record of over 30,000 concurrent users on a single shard is a testament to the clusters capabilities and CCP is looking forward to support at least 50,000 concurrent users."
• ""My babies," she said, only the last inch of the sword shard emerging from her eye socket."