Shattering

How to spell shattering

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce shattering

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does shattering mean?

1. verbBreaking suddenly and violently into many small pieces.
2. adjectiveExtremely shocking, distressing, or overwhelming.

Shattering in a sentence

• verb

  The vase hit the floor, shattering into a hundred shards.

• adjective

  The diagnosis was a shattering blow to the whole family.

• verb

  Workers reported a shattering noise as the windscreen gave way.

• adjective

  News of the redundancies had a shattering effect on staff morale.

Where does shattering come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word grows from the verb 'shatter', which appears in Middle English as 'schateren', meaning 'to dash or scatter into fragments'. That verb is closely tied to 'scatter', and both are thought to be of imitative Germanic origin, echoing the sharp, dispersing sound of something breaking apart. For centuries the literal sense dominated: glass, pottery, or bone breaking violently into pieces. By the 1800s the figurative sense had grown strong, so that hopes, nerves, and silence could all be described as shattered. The '-ing' form does double duty in modern English, naming the ongoing action of breaking and serving as an adjective for anything devastating or overwhelming. The spelling keeps the double 't' from 'shatter', a reminder that the short vowel before it is what makes that consonant double.

How the word is built

• shatter (to break suddenly into many pieces)
• -ing (present participle / adjective suffix)