shattering

present participle of shatter
1
as in destroying
to bring to a complete end the physical soundness, existence, or usefulness of tried to restore their shattered hopes

Synonyms & Similar Words

Relevance

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

2
as in smashing
to cause to break open or into pieces by or as if by an explosive shattered the sealed clay pot to find out what was inside

Synonyms & Similar Words

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

3

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of shattering Man searching with metal detector unearths massive Viking Age fortune, shattering records. — FOXNews.com, 25 Sep. 2026 Last week a number of concerned mathematicians, many of them at the top of their subject, launched the Association for Human Mathematics (AHM)—an effort that was underway even before the earth-shattering Navier-Stokes news. — Joseph Howlett, Scientific American, 14 Sep. 2026 Maya’s fear of commitment mirrors the film’s fear of showing us anything truly ugly or grappling with the idea that our heroine is one of many, many people who lost someone during a society-shattering number of years. — Jourdain Searles, HollywoodReporter, 14 Sep. 2026 After enduring a record-shattering heat wave this spring, Southern California continued to break temperature records this week when Long Beach and Anaheim reached a blistering 107 degrees and Escondido hit 112 degrees. — Clara Harter, Los Angeles Times, 11 Sep. 2026 Europe saw a series of record-shattering heat waves this summer, along with wildfires in places that typically do not see them, such as the UK. — Andrew Freedman, CNN Money, 10 Sep. 2026 So, Peyton and Eli run straight into a window, shattering the glass and parachuting out of the skyscraper. — Ethan Shanfeld, Variety, 9 Sep. 2026 In the 1950s and 1960s, the aerospace industry found eggshells’ resistance to shattering to be a useful model when conducting failure analysis studies of the metal shells used to build airplanes. — Jennifer Ouellette, ArsTechnica, 8 Sep. 2026 Andrew Haigh is a master of restraint, a talent that he’s often weaponized against his own creations to beautiful and shattering effect. — David Ehrlich, IndieWire, 4 Sep. 2026
Recent Examples of Synonyms for shattering
Verb
  • Fox attorneys also accused executives at both Dominion and Smartmatic of destroying evidence in their respective cases, and sought sanctions.
    — Maddy Lauria, NPR, 20 Sep. 2026
  • Because both sides can persistently generate concentrated effects without concentrating forces, destroying the enemy’s ability to keep fighting becomes harder.
    — NADIA SCHADLOW, Foreign Affairs, 18 Sep. 2026
Verb
  • The helicopter crashed in a driveway between two warehouses, smashing into a pair of truck cargo containers while the news crew tried grabbing video footage of a serious collision involving a Metro bus that also left two people dead.
    — Carlos De Loera, Los Angeles Times, 18 Sep. 2026
  • In the rare instances people have spotted, these birds avoid getting stung by smashing the wasps on the ground to break the stingers before finishing their meal.
    — Sean Donnelly, USA Today, 17 Sep. 2026
Verb
  • And Hollywood really should stop ruining good shows trying to chase that approval.
    — Dan Zaksheske OutKick, FOXNews.com, 18 Sep. 2026
  • The near-miss is one of the more potent and consequential instances of a hallucinating AI ruining the reliability of a professional report.
    — Kyle Orland, ArsTechnica, 18 Sep. 2026
Verb
  • On Thursday, the judge ordered the Kennedy Center to provide 30 days' notice before making any major physical changes to the building, including demolishing it.
    — Arkansas Online, Arkansas Online, 20 Sep. 2026
  • On Thursday, the judge ordered the Kennedy Center to provide 30 days’ notice before making any major physical changes to the building, including demolishing it.
    — Gary Fields, Los Angeles Times, 19 Sep. 2026
Verb
  • Military force has imposed enormous costs on both Hamas and Iran, devastating their military facilities and killing their commanders.
    — NADIA SCHADLOW, Foreign Affairs, 18 Sep. 2026
  • The country is also recovering from devastating back-to-back earthquakes in June that have so far killed over 6,000 people.
    — Syra Ortiz Blanes, Miami Herald, 5 Sep. 2026
Verb
  • During El Nino, low-level surface winds blowing from east to west across the Pacific are weakened or sometimes reversed.
    — John Raby, Chicago Tribune, 25 Sep. 2026
  • Temperature highs are at 83 degrees with winds blowing north at 15 mph and gusts as high as 25 mph, according to NWS Melbourne.
    — Garfield Hylton, The Orlando Sentinel, 25 Sep. 2026
Verb
  • Here’s how the shift happened, what the ingredient actually does below the neck and how to fold it into a routine without wrecking your skin barrier.
    — Hanna Wickes, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 15 Sep. 2026
  • The general public learned of the demolition plan only when the wrecking equipment began work nearly three months later.
    — Dan Diamond, Washington Post, 9 Sep. 2026
Verb
  • But as the cost of producing a unit of intelligence collapses, the amount businesses consume is exploding.
    — Sheryl Estrada, Fortune, 23 Sep. 2026
  • For Virgin-Morgan, that means more consistently exploding off the line of scrimmage and winning the edge or gap.
    — Shaun Goodwin, Idaho Statesman, 23 Sep. 2026

Browse Nearby Words

Cite this Entry

“Shattering.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/shattering. Accessed 26 Sep. 2026.

Love words? Need even more definitions?

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!