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

• broken
• busted
• fractured
• 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

Not even the gradual inclusion of name-brand actors like Colin Farrell, Rachel Weisz and Nicole Kidman could dull the bewilderment (try explaining the plot of 2015’s The Lobster to an unsuspecting bystander), or offer a GPS route through his fragmented, fish-eyed looks at human behavior. —David Fear, Rolling Stone, 18 May 2024

Alcohol can block or interfere with deep sleep, making sleep more fragmented. —Regina G. Barber, NPR, 16 May 2024

This underscores the importance of not enticing U.S. individual investors into a fragmented and opaque after-hours market. —Richard Torrenzano, Fortune, 14 May 2024

These professions have always attracted top talent but over time the proliferation of many competing small businesses providing similar services led to fragmented and weakened markets. —William Mullane, USA TODAY, 11 May 2024

But that would complicate life for the consumer looking for the next tip-off in an already fragmented media environment. —Tribune News Service, The Mercury News, 6 May 2024

Some of the pieces were heavily fragmented, according to the release, because of their lengthy exposure to the elements of the arid environment. —Irene Wright, Miami Herald, 7 May 2024

The nation’s fragmented health care system complicates detection of very rare side effects, a process that depends on an analysis of huge amounts of data. —Apoorva Mandavilli, New York Times, 3 May 2024

And most restaurants are, well, pretty small parts of a really large, really fragmented marketplace. —Allie Garfinkle, Fortune, 2 May 2024

Word History

First Known Use

circa 1817, in the meaning defined at sense 1