fragmentation
(frægmənˈteɪʃɛn)
[f. fragment n. + -ation. Cf. F. fragmentation.]
1. A breaking or separation into fragments; spec. in Biol. separation into parts which form new individuals.
| 1881 Times 24 Dec., Fragmentation of work, not attacking too many points at once. 1882 E. R. Lankester in Nature XXVIII. 88 The ‘fragmentation’, or division of the chlorophyll corpuscles of both Hydra and Spongilla. 1882 Vines Sachs' Bot. 946 This process of nuclear division has been termed fragmentation. 1920 H. G. Wells Outl. Hist. I. vi. xxx. 380/1 The state of Europe beneath its political fragmentation was a social disorder. 1943 Roof over Britain ii. 10 The fragmentation of metals under certain conditions. 1958 Spectator 15 Aug. 213/1 The fragmentation of French political parties. 1959 Listener 23 July 152/2 The music is a study in fragmentation. |
2. Comb.: fragmentation bomb, grenade, one designed to disintegrate into small fragments on explosion.
| 1918 Aviation 15 Nov. 502/2 Deliveries of the ‘demolition’ and ‘fragmentation’ bombs..were made in April. 1944 Times 10 Feb. 4/6 An airfield was hit with fragmentation bombs. 1957 F. Krollmann Langenscheidts Fachwörterbuch Wehrwesen 647/1 Fragmentation shell..fragmentation grenade. 1970 Peace News 3 Apr. 5 (caption) This Vietnamese woman was the victim of a fragmentation bomb (made in the USA). 1970 Fragmentation grenade [see frag v.]. 1971 Daily Tel. 22 Apr. 4/5 Incidents of American soldiers in Vietnam tossing fragmentation grenades at officers more than doubled, to 209, last year. |
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▸ Computing. The state of a file that is stored on several separate areas of a disk; the state or fact of having files so stored.
Too much fragmentation degrades computer performance.
| 1983RA81 vs EAGLE re-revisited in fa.info-vax (Usenet newsgroup) 13 Sept. Issues of transfer size, disk fragmentation, and requests from high priority tasks (eg real-time) are all adressed. 1993 Compute Oct. 70/1 The user has the option of seeing a graphical dashboard..showing the compression ratio, the amount of free space on the hard drive, and the amount of fragmentation. 2002 Houston Chron. (Nexis) 19 Sept. 3 Many experienced users even forget to check for file fragmentation when looking at a ‘sick’ PC. |