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

Earlier this year, Nieman Lab reported that The New York Times had built an AI podcast summarizer for its staff to better monitor the massive volume of content created every day across that fragmented ecosystem. —Max Tani, semafor.com, 4 Mar. 2026

Shortly after trumpeter Ethan Marks took to the sidewalk, one of the American Hotel’s current residents leaned out his window and began vocally and jovially mimicking the fragmented and angular notes coming from the instrument. —Todd Martens, Los Angeles Times, 4 Mar. 2026

The room begins to feel fragmented, with too many edges breaking up the sightline. —Angelika Pokovba, Martha Stewart, 3 Mar. 2026

Party leaders say that fragmented support could create a scenario where two Republicans finish in the top two spots in June and advance to the general election. —CBS News, 3 Mar. 2026

Word History

First Known Use

circa 1817, in the meaning defined at sense 1