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

The sector generates tens of billions of dollars in annual spending, yet capital formation remains fragmented. —Joseph Glatt, Sportico.com, 21 Nov. 2025

While often portrayed abroad as a unified, Orwellian surveillance program, Chinese officials and many experts describe it as a fragmented, largely bureaucratic effort to strengthen contract enforcement and public trust. —Micah McCartney, MSNBC Newsweek, 21 Nov. 2025

The primate kissing observations were too fragmented to reveal much about how or why kissing evolved, however. —Stephanie Pappas, Scientific American, 19 Nov. 2025

Money from private investors and corporations can also count in this growing but fragmented system. —Shannon Gibson, The Conversation, 19 Nov. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

circa 1817, in the meaning defined at sense 1