different between shard vs swatch

English

Pronunciation

• (General Australian) IPA^(key): /?a?d/
• (UK) IPA^(key): /???d/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /???d/
• Rhymes: -??(?)d

Etymology 1

From Middle English shard, scherd, scheard, schord, from Old English s?eard (“a broken piece; shard”), from Proto-Germanic *skard? (“notch; nick”), from *skardaz (“damaged; nicked; scarred”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- (“to cut”). Akin to Scots schaird (“shard”), French écharde (“splinter”), Dutch schaarde (“tear; notch; fragment”), German Scharte (“notch”), Old Norse skarð (“notch, hack”) ( > Danish skår).

The database sense is perhaps derived from the online gaming sense or from SHARD (System for Highly Available Replicated Data), name of a 1980s database product.

Alternative forms

• sherd

Noun

shard (plural shards)

1. A piece of broken glass or pottery, especially one found in an archaeological dig.

   Synonym: potsherd
2. (by extension) A piece of material, especially rock and similar materials, reminding of a broken piece of glass or pottery.

   Synonym: splinter

   • 2014, Paul Salopek, Blessed. Cursed. Claimed., National Geographic (December 2014)[2]

     Inside its exhibit hall, behind panes of glass, in a white-lit lab, a team of restorers works on an ancient Byzantine floor: 44 square yards of stone shards rescued from Lot’s Cave Monastery.

3. A tough scale, sheath, or shell; especially an elytron of a beetle.
4. (online gaming) An instance of an MMORPG that is one of several independent and structurally identical virtual worlds, none of which has so many players as to exhaust a system's resources.
   • 1997, Ultima Online. The term "shard" is related to the backstory of the game, in which the Gem of Immortality is shattered by the Stranger, the protagonist of Ultima I.

     "The planet was still bound to the jewel's magic, even as it lay shattered upon the floor of Mondain's castle. For,^[sic] within each shattered remnant of the jewel, dwelled a perfect likeness of Sosaria. Thus is the world in which you are born, live, and die. Brittania^[sic], that was once Sosaria, now exists as a thousand worlds, each with its own peoples, history and destiny. This Brittania^[sic] is but one of many in the multiverse that is... ...ULTIMA ONLINE." - Intro cinematic to the game, written by Michael Morlan [3]

5. (databases) A component of a sharded distributed database.

   Synonym: partition

6. (slang, in the singular or in the plural) A piece of crystal methamphetamine.

Derived terms

• potsherd

Translations

Verb

shard (third-person singular simple present shards, present participle sharding, simple past and past participle sharded)

1. (intransitive) To fall apart into shards, usually as the result of impact or explosion.
2. (transitive) To break (something) into shards.
3. (online gaming, transitive) To divide (an MMORPG) into several shards, or to establish a shard of one.

Translations

References

• (pottery) Shard, in the Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, 1974 edition.

Etymology 2

Noun

shard (uncountable)

1. The plant chard.
   • 1684, John Dryden, “From Horace, Epode 2” in The Second Part of Miscellany Poems, London: Jacob Tonson, 4th edition, p. 79,^[4]

     Not Heathpout, or the rarer Bird,

     Which Phasis, or Ionia yields,

     More pleasing Morsels would afford

     Than the fat Olives of my Fields;

     Than Shards or Mallows for the Pot,

     That keep the loosen’d Body sound,

     Or than the Lamb that falls by Lot,

     To the just Guardian of my Ground.

Anagrams

• Dhars, Hards, hards

Middle English

Noun

shard

1. Alternative form of scherd

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /sw?t?/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /sw?t?/, /sw?t?/
• Rhymes: -?t?

Etymology 1

From earlier Northern England dialectal swache (“the counterfoil or counterstock of a tally”) (1512); further etymology unknown. Cognate with Scots swach, swatch. Compare English swath, swathe. Compare also Old English swæcc (“taste; flavour; odour; fragrance”).

Noun

swatch (plural swatches)

1. A piece, pattern, or sample, generally of cloth or a similar material.
2. A selection of such samples bound together.
3. (figuratively) A clump or portion of something.
4. (figuratively) A demonstration, an example, a proof.
5. (Northern England, obsolete) A tag or other small object attached to another item as a means of identifying its owner; a tally; specifically the counterfoil of a tally.
   • c. 1512, “The Booke of All the Directions and Orders for Kepynge of My Lordes Hous Yerely. X. ITEM The Articles Howe the Clerks of the Kechinge and Clerks of the Brevements Shall Order Them aswell Conssernynge the Brevements as for Seynge to the Officers in their Officis to be Kept Daylye Weikely Monthely Quarterly Halff-Yerely and Yerely”, in The Regulations and Establishment of the Houshold of Henry Algernon Percy, the Fifth Earl of Northumberland, at His Castles of Wresill and Lekinfield in Yorkshire. Begun Anno Domini M.D. XII, London: [s.n.], published 1770, ?OCLC; republished in Francis Grose, Thomas Astle, and other eminent antiquaries, compilers, The Antiquarian Repertory: A Miscellaneous Assemblage of Topography, History, Biography, Customs, and Manners. Intended to Illustrate and Preserve Several Valuable Remains of Old Times. [...] In Four Volumes, volume IV, London: Printed for and published by Edward Jeffery, No. 11, Pall-Mall, 1809, ?OCLC, page 73:

     ITEM that the said Clerkis of the Brevements entre all the Taillis of the Furniunturs in the Jornall Booke in the Countynghous every day furthwith after the Brede be delyveret to the Pantre and then the Stoke [i.e., main part] of the Taill to by delyveret to the Baker and the Swache to the Pantler. [...] ITEM that the said Clerkis of the Brevements entre all the Taills of the Brasyantors in the Jornall Booke in the Countynghous at every tyme furthwith after the Bere be delyveret into the Buttry and then the Stoke of the Taill to be delyveret to the Brewar and the Swatche to the Butler.

Translations

Verb

swatch (third-person singular simple present swatches, present participle swatching, simple past and past participle swatched)

1. To create a swatch, especially a sample of knitted fabric.

Etymology 2

Origin unknown; originally used chiefly in the East of England.

Noun

swatch (plural swatches)

1. (Britain) A channel or passage of water between sandbanks, or between a sandbank and a seashore.