Definition of "shard"

You know there is something fascinating beyond that wall because someone's tried to stop you seeing over, and there are shards of glass embedded in the top.

2012, Andrew Martin, Underground Overground: A passenger's history of the Tube, Profile Books, page 29

Inside its exhibit hall, behind panes of glass, in a white-lit lab, a team of restorers works on an ancient Byzantine floor: 44 square yards of stone shards rescued from Lot’s Cave Monastery.

2014, Paul Salopek, Blessed. Cursed. Claimed., National Geographic (December 2014)

"The planet was still bound to the jewel's magic, even as it lay shattered upon the floor of Mondain's castle. For,[sic] within each shattered remnant of the jewel, dwelled a perfect likeness of Sosaria. Thus is the world in which you are born, live, and die. Brittania[sic], that was once Sosaria, now exists as a thousand worlds, each with its own peoples, history and destiny. This Brittania[sic] is but one of many in the multiverse that is.....ULTIMA ONLINE." - Intro cinematic to the game, written by Michael Morlan

1997, Ultima Online. The term "shard" is related to the backstory of the game, in which the Gem of Immortality is shattered by the Stranger, the protagonist of Ultima I.

Not Heathpout, or the rarer Bird,Which Phasis, or Ionia yields,More pleasing Morsels would affordThan the fat Olives of my Fields;Than Shards or Mallows for the Pot,That keep the loosen’d Body sound,Or than the Lamb that falls by Lot,To the just Guardian of my Ground.

1684, John Dryden, “From Horace, Epode 2”, in The Second Part of Miscellany Poems‎, 4th edition, London: Jacob Tonson, page 79