Sherd
/ʃɜːrd/noun
A broken piece or fragment of pottery, especially one found in an archaeological context.
Did you know?The word lives beside the more familiar “shard,” and both descend from the same Old English root for a cut or split piece—proof that even brokenness has a long linguistic memory.
Etymological Timeline
Proto-Indo-European
PIE
*sker-
“to cut, to shear”
Proto-Germanic
PGmc
*skurđaz / *skerđaz
“a cut piece, fragment”
Old English
OE
sceard
“a broken piece; fragment; shard”
Middle English
ME
sherd
“a broken fragment, especially of pottery”
Modern English
English
sherd
“an archaeological or literary term for a pottery fragment”