FRAGMENTARY

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does fragmentary mean? 

• FRAGMENTARY (adjective)
  The adjective FRAGMENTARY has 1 sense:

1. consisting of small disconnected parts

  Familiarity information: FRAGMENTARY used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• FRAGMENTARY (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Consisting of small disconnected parts

Synonyms:

fragmental; fragmentary

Context example:

fragmentary remains

Similar:

fractional (constituting or comprising a part or fraction of a possible whole or entirety)

Derivation:

fragment (a broken piece of a brittle artifact)

fragment (an incomplete piece)

fragment (a piece broken off or cut off of something else)

 Context examples 

It is because what education you have is fragmentary, sketchy.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Because of this fragmentary understanding, the mammals' evolutionary placement hadn't been clear.

(Scientists discover fossil of bizarre groundhog-like mammal on Madagascar, NSF)

At first I could not make much sense of what I heard; for the discourse of Louisa Eshton and Mary Ingram, who sat nearer to me, confused the fragmentary sentences that reached me at intervals.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

My reflections were too undefined and fragmentary to merit record: I hardly yet knew where I was; Gateshead and my past life seemed floated away to an immeasurable distance; the present was vague and strange, and of the future I could form no conjecture.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)