In archaeology, a sherd is commonly a historic or prehistoric fragment of pottery, although the term is occasionally used to refer to fragments of stone and glass vessels as well.
Occasionally, a piece of broken pottery may be referred to as a shard,[1] or the more precise term potsherd can be used. While the spelling shard is generally reserved for referring to fragments of glass vessels the term does not exclude pottery fragments.[1] The etymology is connected with the idea of breakage, from Old English sceard, related to Old Norse skarth, 'notch', and Middle High German scharte, 'notch'.
A sherd or potsherd with writing painted or inscribed on it can be more precisely referred to as an ostracon.