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Sherd
In archaeology, a sherd, or more precisely, potsherd, is commonly a historic or prehistoric fragment of pottery, although the term is occasionally used to refer to fragments of stone and glass vessels, as well.Occasionally, a piece of broken pottery may be referred to as a shard. While the spelling shard is generally reserved for referring to fragments of glass vessels, the term does not exclude pottery fragments. The etymology is connected with the idea of breakage, from Old English sceard, related to Old Norse skarð, “notch”, and Middle High German schart, “notch”.A sherd or potsherd that has been used by having writing painted or inscribed on it can be more precisely referred to as an ostracon.
The analysis of sherds is widely used by archaeologists to date sites and develop chronologies, due to their diagnostic characteristics and high resistance to natural, destructive processes. Some characteristics of sherds useful to archaeologists include temper, form, and glaze. These characteristics can be used to determine the kinds of resources and technologies used at the site.
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Sherd (noun)
obsolete form of shard
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Shard (noun)
A piece of broken glass or pottery, especially one found in an archaeological dig.
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Shard (noun)
A piece of material, especially rock and similar materials, reminding of a broken piece of glass or pottery.
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Shard (noun)
A tough scale, sheath, or shell; especially an elytron of a beetle.
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Shard (noun)
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.
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Shard (noun)
A component of a sharded distributed database.
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Shard (noun)
crystal methamphetamine
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Shard (verb)
To fall apart into shards, usually as the result of impact or explosion.
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Shard (verb)
To break (something) into shards.
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Shard (verb)
To divide (an shards, or to establish a shard of one.