Meaning
Small broken fragments; tiny pieces of something shattered or blown apart. It survives almost only in the phrases 'blown to smithereens', 'smashed to smithereens', or 'blast to smithereens', works as a plural with no ordinary singular, and carries a vivid, informal, usually hyperbolic register. Informal and hyperbolic; almost confined to 'to smithereens' after verbs of destruction. Regional use: General English (borrowed from Irish).
Origin
Developed from Irish smidirini, 'little bits' - a diminutive built on smiodar 'fragment', using the Irish diminutive suffix -in that English also borrowed in 'colleen' (from cailin, a diminutive of caile 'girl'). The word entered English meaning thoroughly shattered: Merriam-Webster dates the first known use to 1795 and glosses the Irish source as 'little bits', while the Online Etymology Dictionary's files show it surfacing around 1810 in colloquial use, first spelled smiddereens - a modest discrepancy typical of a slangy borrowing. A shortened form 'smithers', in the phrase 'to smithers', is recorded by 1828. The deeper origin of smiodar is left unstated in these references, and the apparent echo of 'smith' is coincidence rather than kinship.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- smiddereens
- smitherens
- smitherings
- smithers
Usage Examples
- The old greenhouse had been smashed to smithereens by last week's hailstorm.
- Drop the good teapot on that tile floor and it is smithereens before you can flinch.
- The demolition crew reduced the grain elevator to smithereens in under ten seconds.