The Etymology of Fragment
Fragment carries the sound of shattering in its etymology.βββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββ Latin frangere meant 'to break,' and fragmentum was the Latin word for what remained after the breaking β a piece, a remnant, a shard. The suffix -mentum marked the result of an action, so a fragmentum was literally 'that which has been broken off.' The word reached English through Old French in the fifteenth century, initially describing physical broken pieces β fragments of pottery, fragments of bone. Writers soon extended it to anything incomplete: fragments of text, fragments of memory, fragments of conversation. The Romantic poets were especially fond of the word, using it to describe both ruined buildings and unfinished poems, often simultaneously. Latin frangere generated one of English's richest word families. Fracture is a break; a fraction is a broken number; fragile means easily broken; frail is fragile worn down through French; to infringe is to break into; to refract is to break the path of light. Even 'sassafras' may descend from the same root, through a folk-etymology chain involving the breaking of rocks where the plant grew.