Clasm

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The action of breaking or fragmenting an object into pieces
2. A process in which something is shattered or fractured apart
3. The act of breaking down or shattering a solid material into fragments

Etymology: "Clasm" is not a free-standing English word. It is a combining form, a word-ending taken from Greek "klasma", "a broken piece or fragment," which comes from the verb "klan", "to break." The Greek root reached English through scholarly coinages rather than everyday speech, so the element appears mainly at the end of technical or learned words. Its best-known appearance is in "iconoclasm," from Greek "eikonoklasmos", combining "eikon", "image," with "klan", "to break." The Greek term was used for the Byzantine campaign against religious images in the eighth and ninth centuries, and English borrowed the word much later. The same Greek root also gives "clastic," a term in geology for rocks made of broken fragments of older rock.

Synonyms: fracture, breaking, rupture