Fragment

How to spell fragment

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce fragment

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does fragment mean?

1. nounA small part broken off or detached from something larger, or an incomplete remaining portion.
2. verbTo break or cause to break into small, separate parts.

Fragment in a sentence

• noun

  A sharp fragment of glass lay on the kitchen floor.

• verb

  Poor management can fragment a once unified team.

• noun

  The museum displayed a fragment of an ancient clay tablet.

• verb

  Constant interruptions tend to fragment my concentration.

Where does fragment come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Latin fragmentum, meaning 'a piece broken off', which was built on the verb frangere, 'to break'. English borrowed it in the fifteenth century, originally to describe a literal broken-off chunk of something solid, and it later extended to incomplete portions of texts, ideas, and time. The same frangere root sits inside a whole family of familiar English words, including 'fracture', 'fragile', 'fraction', and even 'refrain' in its older sense, all of which carry the idea of breaking or being easily broken. The spelling keeps the Latin -ment ending intact, so the trap for writers is simply that the unstressed second syllable can be heard as a vague schwa rather than the clear 'ment'. Remembering its cousin 'fracture' helps anchor the firm g before the m.

How the word is built

• frag- (from frangere: to break)
• -ment (noun suffix indicating result of an action)