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

MarketONE is helping lead this shift by helping bring more structure and consistency to what has traditionally been a fragmented part of the digital-services ecosystem. —Maria Williams, USA Today, 2 Jan. 2026

Instability and fear have made the research system, already sometimes prone to siloing, even more fragmented. —Katherine J. Wu, The Atlantic, 30 Dec. 2025

The disaster exposed the consequences of neglect and fragmented responsibility for levee upkeep. —Farshid Vahedifard, The Conversation, 29 Dec. 2025

In a fragmented ecosystem, control is a form of creative and economic stability. —Dana Harris-Bridson, IndieWire, 29 Dec. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

circa 1817, in the meaning defined at sense 1