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

United Rentals, which was founded to essentially roll up a fragmented and inefficient industry, believed that the best use of its enormous free cash flow generation was to buy up competitors to drive growth through acquisition. —Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington, CNBC, 8 Apr. 2025

The real challenges lie in operational inertia, fragmented adoption and underutilization of existing tools. —Arthur Zaczkiewicz, Footwear News, 8 Apr. 2025

Panelists stressed the importance of consolidating fragmented tech stacks to ensure seamless interactions from browsing to purchase. —Tyler Shepherd, USA Today, 4 Apr. 2025

Tennis: The sport’s media is a fragmented mess, from Grand Slam broadcast rights to social media highlights. —Natasha Frost, New York Times, 3 Apr. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

circa 1817, in the meaning defined at sense 1