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

Synonyms

• 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

In theory, this could help spotlight Alto Adige’s remarkable vineyard diversity - granite slopes, volcanic porphyry, glacial moraines - all compressed into just under 6,000 hectares of fragmented vineyards, layered across extreme altitudes. —Paul Caputo, Forbes.com, 3 July 2025

Theodoridou’s short story taps into more than the raw emotion of the betrayals and twists in a fragmented retelling with rapid scene breaks, thoughts cut off mid-sentence and unexpected shifts from prose to poetry. —John Wiswell, People.com, 3 July 2025

The statement did not address questions over the potential fragmented implementation of the order. —Suzanne Gamboa, NBC news, 3 July 2025

Heavy breathing and crying can be heard in audio of the 911 call as the surviving roommates pass the phone between them and what sounds like two other people, answering the dispatcher in fragmented responses. —Josh Campbell, CNN Money, 30 June 2025

Word History

First Known Use

circa 1817, in the meaning defined at sense 1