fragmented

adjective

frag·​ment·​ed ˈfrag-ˌmen-təd 

1

: broken or separated into distinct parts

Another fragmented language group is the Austroasiatic family, whose most widely spoken languages are Vietnamese and Cambodian.

—Jared Diamond

The reality seems to be that the global audience for movies has become increasingly diverse and fragmented, which runs against Hollywood's obsession with finding that magic common denominator.

—Peter Bart

2

computing : having related or associated pieces of stored data disorganized in a way that makes them more difficult to access

Fragmented files require much more work to read than contiguous files, because to do so DOS must chase down each sector, possibly moving the disk head back and forth many times. Each of these … slows the task at hand and results in additional wear and tear on your hard disk.

—Brett Glass

You probably won't notice a marked performance boost unless your hard drive is extremely fragmented.

—Doug Stanley

A computer's hard drive becomes more and more fragmented every time a file is saved, a file is deleted or a program is installed.

—Shea Conner

Synonyms of fragmented

• fractured
• broken
• shattered
• smashed

Examples of fragmented in a Sentence

restoring the fragmented Roman sculpture was like putting together a jigsaw puzzle

Recent Examples on the Web

Microsoft’s 2025 Work Trend Index reported employees interrupted by a meeting, email or notification every two minutes on average (roughly 275 times a day), and nearly half of employees surveyed describe their work as chaotic and fragmented. —Dilan Gomih, Forbes.com, 29 Jan. 2026

On the other hand, fragmented data forces planners to rely on manual, inaccurate spreadsheets, leading to costly stockouts and overbuying. —Alexandra Harrell, Sourcing Journal, 28 Jan. 2026

This gap leaves professionals relying on memory, intuition, and fragmented references sometimes at the cost of precision and confidence. —Nia Bowers, USA Today, 27 Jan. 2026

Politics aside, Newsom’s proposal would streamline governance that is now opaque and fragmented, and shields the system’s many points of authority from accountability. —Dan Walters, Mercury News, 24 Jan. 2026

Word History

First Known Use

circa 1817, in the meaning defined at sense 1