fragment

From Late Middle English fragment, from Latin fragmentum (“a fragment, remnant”), from frangō (“I break”) +‎ -mentum.

• IPA^(key): (noun) /ˈfɹæɡmənt/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• (verb) IPA^(key): /fɹæɡˈmɛnt/, /ˈfɹæɡmɛnt/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛnt

fragment (plural fragments)

1. A part broken off; a small, detached portion; an imperfect part, either physically or not

   Synonyms: chip, lump; see also Thesaurus:piece

   a fragment of an ancient writing

   I heard a small fragment of the conversation.

   • 2012, William Matthews, The Tragedy of Arthur‎^[1], University of California Press, page 68:

     […] and two enormous Scottish poems, the Buik of Alexander, which has been improbably ascribed to Barbour, and Sir Gilbert Hay's Buik of Alexander the Conquerour; one nearly complete Prose Life of Alexander and fragments of four others; a stanzaic translation of the Fuerres de Gadres which survives only in a fragment, the Romance of Cassamus, and three separate translations of the Secreta Secretorum.

2. (grammar) A sentence not containing a subject or a predicate; a sentence fragment.
3. (computing) An incomplete portion of code.
5. (Internet) A portion of a URL referring to a subordinate resource or anchor (such as a specific point on a web page), introduced by the # sign.

   Holonym: anchor link

   The URL www.example.com/home#recent ends with a fragment.

   • 2006, Michael Mahemoff, Ajax Design Patterns, O'Reilly Media, →ISBN, page 523:

     Unique URLs requires you to make like an information architect and do some URL design work. Possibly, you'll be controlling only the fragment identifier rather than the entire URL, but even the fragment identifier has usability implications.

6. (biology) A split piece of an organism that has undergone the asexual reproduction process where the organism spilts into one or more pieces, then those pieces become new individuals.

fragment (third-person singular simple present fragments, present participle fragmenting, simple past and past participle fragmented)

1. (intransitive) To break apart.
   • 2023 July 31, Charles Hugh Smith, Lessons from the Unraveling of the Roman Empire: Simplification, Localization‎^[2]:

     Once the centralized power of Rome fragmented, economic, social and political power simplified and relocalized.

2. (transitive) To cause to be broken into pieces.
   • 1982 December 18, Pat Califa, “Open Policy”, in Gay Community News, volume 10, number 22, page 5:

     Samois includes celebate ^[sic], heterosexual and bisexual women as well as lesbians, and I feel very strongly that this is the wisest choice. Our community is so fragile that we can't afford to fragment it by excommunicating non-lesbian women.

3. (transitive, computing) To break up and disperse (a file) into non-contiguous areas of a disk.
4. (intransitive, biology) Of an organism: to undergo the asexual reproduction process where an organism spilts into one or more pieces, then those pieces become new individuals.

• fragmentize

• defragment

• “fragment”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “fragment”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.
• fragment on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Learned borrowing from Latin fragmentum (“a fragment, remnant”).

• IPA^(key): (Central) [fɾəɡˈmen]
• IPA^(key): (Balearic) [fɾəɡˈment]
• IPA^(key): (Valencia) [fɾaɡˈment]

fragment m (plural fragments)

1. a fragment

• fragmentari
• fragment d'Okazaki

• “fragment”, in Diccionari de la llengua catalana [Dictionary of the Catalan Language] (in Catalan), second edition, Institute of Catalan Studies [Catalan: Institut d'Estudis Catalans], April 2007
• “fragment”, in Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana, Grup Enciclopèdia Catalana, 2025.
• “fragment” in Diccionari normatiu valencià, Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua.
• “fragment” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.

Learned borrowing from Latin fragmentum.

• IPA^(key): [ˈfraɡmɛnt]

fragment m inan

1. fragment (portion or segment of an object)

• “fragment”, in Příruční slovník jazyka českého (in Czech), 1935–1957
• “fragment”, in Slovník spisovného jazyka českého (in Czech), 1960–1971, 1989
• “fragment”, in Internetová jazyková příručka (in Czech), 2008–2025

Learned borrowing from Latin fragmentum (“a fragment, remnant”). Influence by French fragment.

• IPA^(key): /frɑxˈmɛnt/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: frag‧ment
• Rhymes: -ɛnt

fragment n (plural fragmenten, diminutive fragmentje n)

1. a fragment, broken portion
2. a fragment, part of a work (whether due to selection or incompleteness)

• fragmentarisch
• fragmentenhypothese
• fragmenteren

• → Indonesian: fragmen

• “fragment” in Woordenlijst Nederlandse Taal – Officiële Spelling, Nederlandse Taalunie. [the official spelling word list for the Dutch language]

Learned borrowing from Latin fragmentum (“a fragment, remnant”).

• IPA^(key): /fʁaɡ.mɑ̃/

• Audio (Paris):

  (file)

• Homophone: fragments
• Hyphenation: frag‧ment

fragment m (plural fragments)

1. fragment

• fragment d'Okazaki
• fragmentaire
• fragmenter

• fraction

• → Romanian: fragment
• → Turkish: fragman

• “fragment”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Learned borrowing from Latin fragmentum.

• IPA^(key): /ˈfraɡmɛnt/

fragment^[1] (Late Middle English)

1. a small part or piece; a fragment

• English: fragment

Borrowed from Latin fragmentum.

fragment n (definite singular fragmentet, indefinite plural fragment or fragmenter, definite plural fragmenta or fragmentene)

1. a fragment

• fragmentere

• “fragment” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

Borrowed from Latin fragmentum.

fragment n (definite singular fragmentet, indefinite plural fragment, definite plural fragmenta)

1. a fragment

• fragmentere

• “fragment” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

Learned borrowing from Latin fragmentum.

• IPA^(key): /ˈfraɡ.mɛnt/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -aɡmɛnt
• Syllabification: frag‧ment

fragment m inan

1. fragment, excerpt, passage

   Synonym: urywek

• fragment in Wielki słownik języka polskiego, Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
• fragment in Polish dictionaries at PWN

Borrowed from French fragment, Latin fragmentum.

• IPA^(key): /fraɡˈment/

fragment n (plural fragmente)

1. fragment

   Synonyms: bucată, frântură

• “fragment”, in DEX online—Dicționare ale limbii române (Dictionaries of the Romanian language) (in Romanian), 2004–2025

Borrowed from Latin fragmentum.

• IPA^(key): /frǎɡment/
• Hyphenation: frag‧ment

fràgment m inan (Cyrillic spelling фра̀гмент)

1. fragment

• “fragment”, in Hrvatski jezični portal [Croatian language portal] (in Serbo-Croatian), 2006–2025

Ultimately from Latin fragmentum.

• IPA^(key): [ˈfraɡment]
• Rhymes: -aɡment
• Hyphenation: frag‧ment

fragment m inan (relational adjective fragmentový or fragmentárny)

1. fragment (archaeologically or historically valuable fragmentary part of a larger whole)

   Synonyms: úlomok, zlomok

2. fragment (partially preserved or unfinished work of art)
3. fragment (part of a larger whole)
4. (biology, genetics) fragment (part of a broken chromosome)

• “fragment”, in Slovníkový portál Jazykovedného ústavu Ľ. Štúra SAV [Dictionary portal of the Ľ. Štúr Institute of Linguistics, Slovak Academy of Science] (in Slovak), https://slovnik.juls.savba.sk, 2003–2025

Borrowed from Latin fragmentum.

• Audio:

  (file)

fragment n

1. a fragment

• fragmentarisk
• fragmentera
• fragmentering
• fragmentisera
• fragmentisering

• fragment in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)