means A sharp fragment broken off from something brittle like glass, pottery, or rock.

from From Old English 'sceard,' meaning a gap, notch, or cut piece — kin to the verb 'shear,' to cut. It belongs to a wide Germanic family (compare Old Norse 'skarð,' a notch or gap), all circling the idea of something cleaved or broken off. For centuries it meant chiefly a broken bit of pottery, and only later spread to glass, stone, and anything else that shatters into edges.