▪ I. shattering, vbl. n.
(ˈʃætərɪŋ)
[-ing1.]
The action of the verb shatter; an instance of this. Also concr., a shattered piece or fragment.
| 1658 A. Fox tr. Wurtz' Surg. ii. xxviii. 191 The bone was not black, all kept together, no shatterings nor splinters in it. 1748 Anson's Voy. i. x. 100 The violence of the storms, the shattering of our sails and rigging. 1863 Reader 31 Oct. 512 Mr. Coxwell's balloon was made by himself.., and he has repaired all the shatterings it has received in the cause of science. 1886 Athenæum 6 Feb. 197/1 The sudden shattering of his belief in a miraculous apparition. 1960 Farmer & Stockbreeder 16 Feb. 77/1 Some plants produced seed heads which were less susceptible to shattering than others. 1974 E. Stacey Peace Country ii. 112 The report said that he lost considerable of the crop from shattering. |
▪ II. ˈshattering, ppl. a.
[-ing2.]
That shatters.
1. That is broken up suddenly or forcibly; falling in pieces or asunder.
| 1567 Painter Pal. Pleas. (1890) III. 431 The foundation..planted in shattring Soyle. 1578 T. Proctor Gorg. Gallery, Sonnet agst. Detraction iv. D iv, In weltring waues my ship is tost, My shattering sayles away bee shorne. |
2. a. Ruinously destructive; that breaks or destroys by a sudden blow or concussion. Also fig.
| 1577 Kendall Flowers of Epigr., Trifles 27, I shield from shatteryng showers the house. 1805 Southey Madoc ii. ix. 65 Till one, or both, Dash'd down the shattering precipice, should feed The mountain eagle! 1847 De Quincey Joan of Arc Wks. III. 235 Her answer to this was as shattering as it was rapid. 1903 Morley Gladstone vi. v. II. 343 Mr. Gladstone's description of a marvellous and shattering hour. |
b. Of sound: rending the air, ear-splitting.
| 1842 Tennyson Sir Galahad 5 The shattering trumpet shrilleth high. |
c. In trivial use, astounding, upsetting; tiresome.
| 1924 Wodehouse Bill the Conqueror v. 97 Any ordinary disaster she might have coped with, but this was too shattering. 1948 R. Lehmann Note in Music (ed. 2) 114 We don't converse much. But now and then she lets fall a shattering remark. 1958 [see lavatorial a. 2]. 1967 Listener 16 Nov. 637/3 The hundreds of quotations..about..murders, the savage punishments, and slave life in the New World, are shattering. |
Hence ˈshatteringly adv.
| 1818 Moore Fudge Fam. Paris xi. 49 True he..But raised the hopes of men—as eaglets fly With tortoises aloft into the sky—To dash them down again more shatteringly! 1911 G. K. Chesterton Ballad White Horse v. 112 On the helm of a high chief Fell shatteringly his brand. 1939 H. J. Massingham Countryman's Jrnl. xxx. 132 The argument applies far more shatteringly to the Purbeck limestone. |