a. [f. FRAGMENT + -ARY. Cf. mod.F. fragmentaire.
Johnson, 1755, cites Donne, and says ‘a word not elegant, nor in use.’ It has been common since 1835.]
Of the nature of, or composed of, fragments; not complete or entire; disconnected or disjointed.
1611. Donne, Lett. (1651), 158. With those fragmentary recreations I must make shift to recompense the missing of that contentment which your favour opens to me.
| Ibid. (a. 1631), Progr. Soul, 2nd Anniv., 82. | |
| What fragmentary rubbidge this world is | |
| Thou know’st, and that it is not worth a thought. |
1835. Browning, Paracelsus, II. 32.
| A few Discoveries, as appended here and there, | |
| The fragmentary produce of much toil. |
1844. Thirlwall, Greece, VIII. lxiv. 275. We have but scanty and fragmentary notices of his [Philip’s] operations against them [the Ætolians].
1856. Kane, Arct. Expl., I. xx. 248. After vain attempts to force them, becoming embarrassed in fragmentary ice, worn, to use his own words, into ‘deep pits and valleys,’ he was obliged to camp, surrounded by masses of the wildest character, some of them thirty feet in height.
1875. Jowett, Plato (ed. 2), III. 527, Timaeus, Introduction. He warns his reader, that as is the nature of the subject so will the style be—as his knowledge is fragmentary and unconnected, his style partakes of the same character.
b. spec. in Geol. Composed of fragments of previously existing rocks, etc.
1836. Macgillivray, trans. Humboldt’s Trav., xxi. 305. The rocks were found to be fragmentary, consisting of pieces of coral, cemented by carbonate of lime, and interspersed with quartzy sand.
Hence Fragmentarily adv., Fragmentariness.
1836. J. Sterling, Ess. & Tales (1848), I. pp. lxxxvi.–lxxxvii. I have always had a sort of superstition about some mysterious fate leading me thither, and a sense of fragmentariness from not having been there, easily explicable from natural grounds, and kept down by a more rational faith.
1856. Emerson, Eng. Traits, Universities, Wks. (Bohn), II. 94. English wealth, falling on their school and university training, makes a systematic reading of the best authors, and to the end of a knowledge how the things whereof they treat really stand: whilst pamphleteer or journalist reading for an argument for a party, or reading to write, or, at all events, for some by-end imposed on them, must read meanly and fragmentarily.
1860. Westcott, Introd. Study Gosp., vi. (ed. 4), 329. The various narratives of the Resurrection place the fragmentariness of the Gospel [of St. Luke] in the clearest light.
1871. Daily News, 18 Sept. Where an enterprising enemy might have cut them off fragmentarily.
