'shard' originates from Old English, specifically the word 'sceard', where the root meant 'a broken piece' or 'fragment'.

'shard' developed from Old English 'sceard' (a broken piece) into Middle English forms and remained as the noun 'shard' meaning a fragment; the computing sense 'shard' and 'sharding' (a piece of data) is a modern extension of that noun sense applied to databases and distributed systems.

Initially, it meant 'a broken piece or fragment' (physical object); over time it gained a figurative and technical meaning in computing as 'a partition or fragment of data', which led to the verb/noun uses 'shard' and 'sharding'.