different between shatter vs wreck

English

Etymology

From Middle English schateren (“to scatter, dash”), an assibilated form of Middle English scateren ("to scatter"; see scatter), from Old English scaterian, from Proto-Germanic *skat- (“to smash, scatter”). Cognate with Dutch schateren (“to burst out laughing”), Low German schateren, Albanian shkatërroj (“to destroy, devastate”). Doublet of scatter.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /??æt.?(?)/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /??æt.?/
• Rhymes: -æt?(?)
• Hyphenation: shat?ter

Verb

shatter (third-person singular simple present shatters, present participle shattering, simple past and past participle shattered)

1. (transitive) to violently break something into pieces.

2. (transitive) to destroy or disable something.
3. (intransitive) to smash, or break into tiny pieces.
4. (transitive) to dispirit or emotionally defeat
   • 1984 Martyn Burke, The commissar's report, p36

     Your death will shatter him. Which is what I want. Actually, I would prefer to kill him.

   • 1992 Rose Gradym "Elvis Cures Teen's Brain Cancer!" Weekly World News, Vol. 13, No. 38 (23 June, 1992), p41

     A CAT scan revealed she had an inoperable brain tumor. The news shattered Michele's mother.

   • 2006 A. W. Maldonado, Luis Muñoz Marín: Puerto Rico's democratic revolution, p163

     The marriage, of course, was long broken but Munoz knew that asking her for a divorce would shatter her.
5. (obsolete) To scatter about.

Translations

Noun

shatter (countable and uncountable, plural shatters)

1. (countable, archaic) A fragment of anything shattered.
   • 1731, Jonathan Swift, Directions to Servants

     it will fall upon the glass of the sconce, and break it into shatters

2. A (pine) needle.

   Synonym: shat (Maryland, Delaware)

   • 1834, The Southern Agriculturist and Register of Rural Affairs: Adapted to the Southern Section of the United States, page 421:

     My usual habit is, as soon as I get my wheat trodden out, and my corn secured in the fall, to litter my farm yard (and if my cultivation is far off, I select some warm spot near the field) with leaves and pine shatters, (preferring the former) ...

   • 1859, Samuel W. Cole, The New England Farmer, page 277:

     They are preserved in cellars, or out of doors in kilns. The method of fixing them is to raise the ground a few inches, where they are to be placed, and cover with pine shatters to the depth of six inches or more.

   • 2012, Marguerite Henry, Sea Star: Orphan of Chincoteague, Simon and Schuster (?ISBN), page 95:

     Grandpa snapped his fingers. "Consarn it all!" he sputtered. "I plumb forgot the pine shatters. Paul and Maureen, you gather some nice smelly pine shatters from off 'n the floor of the woods. Nothin' makes a better cushion for pony feet as pine shatters ..."

3. (uncountable, slang) A form of concentrated cannabis.

Translations

Anagrams

• Hatters, Threats, hatters, stareth, threats

English

Etymology

From Middle English wrek, from Anglo-Norman wrek, from Old Norse *wrek (Norwegian and Icelandic rek, Swedish vrak), from Proto-Germanic *wrekan?, whence also Old English wrecan (English wreak), Old High German rehhan, Old Saxon wrekan, Gothic ???????????????????????? (wrikan).

Pronunciation

• enPR: r?k, IPA^(key): /???k/
• Rhymes: -?k

Noun

wreck (plural wrecks)

1. Something or someone that has been ruined.

   He was an emotional wreck after the death of his wife.

   Synonym: basket case, mess

2. The remains of something that has been severely damaged or worn down.
   • 1779, William Cowper, Retirement

     To the fair haven of my native home, / The wreck of what I was, fatigued I come.

3. An event in which something is damaged through collision.

   • the wrecks of matter and the crush of worlds

   • Hard and obstinate / As is a rock amidst the raging floods, / 'Gainst which a ship, of succour desolate, / Doth suffer wreck, both of herself and goods.

   • 1883, John Richard Green, The Conquest of England

     Its intellectual life was thus able to go on amidst the wreck of its political life.

4. (law) Goods, etc. cast ashore by the sea after a shipwreck.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Bouvier to this entry?)

Synonyms

• crash
• ruins

Derived terms

• catch wreck
• shipwreck
• train wreck

Translations

Verb

wreck (third-person singular simple present wrecks, present participle wrecking, simple past and past participle wrecked)

1. To destroy violently; to cause severe damage to something, to a point where it no longer works, or is useless.

   He wrecked the car in a collision.

   That adulterous hussy wrecked my marriage!

2. To ruin or dilapidate.
3. (Australia) To dismantle wrecked vehicles or other objects, to reclaim any useful parts.
4. To involve in a wreck; hence, to cause to suffer ruin; to balk of success, and bring disaster on.

   • Weak and envy'd, if they should conspire, / They wreck themselves, and he hath his Desire.

Synonyms

• See also Thesaurus:destroy

Antonyms

• build
• construct
• make
• produce

Derived terms

• bewreck
• wrecker
• wreckage

Translations

References

Yola

Noun

wreck

1. Alternative form of rocke