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

That includes neck, back and shoulder aches, and fragmented sleep from switching positions more often throughout the night. —Andee Tagle, NPR, 2 Oct. 2025

In many studios, less than 5% of that material is ever reused, largely because finding and preparing it for production is slow, manual, and fragmented. —Jennifer Maas, Variety, 2 Oct. 2025

The approach allows the village and city to review a proposal for development together rather than pursuing fragmented projects, said Jack Riley, Summit village president, and Oconomowoc Mayor Robert Magnus. —Tom Daykin, jsonline.com, 2 Oct. 2025

As in the case of Venu, the idea was to try to bring some coherence to an experience that has become fragmented and disorienting. —Dade Hayes, Deadline, 2 Oct. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

circa 1817, in the meaning defined at sense 1