The Collaborative International Dictionary
Shred \Shred\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Shred or Shredded; p. pr. & vb. n. Shredding.] [OE. shreden, schreden, AS. scre['a]dian; akin to OD. schrooden, OHG. scr?tan, G. schroten. See Shred, n.]
To cut or tear into small pieces, particularly narrow and long pieces, as of cloth or leather.
--Chaucer.To lop; to prune; to trim. [Obs.]
Shredding \Shred"ding\, n.
The act of cutting or tearing into shreds.
That which is cut or torn off; a piece.
--Hooker.
Wiktionary
n. 1 (context uncountable English) A style of very fast and very complex guitar playing. 2 The act of cutting or tearing into shreds. 3 That which is cut or torn off; a piece. vb. (present participle of shred English)
WordNet
See shred
Wikipedia
Shredding is a traditional European method of tree pruning by which all side branches are removed repeatedly leaving the main trunk and top growth. In the Middle Ages the practice was common throughout Europe, but it is now rare, found mainly in central and Eastern Europe.
The purpose of shredding is to allow harvest of firewood and animal fodder while preserving a tall main trunk which may be harvested for timber at a later date.
It was formerly practiced in Britain although Oliver Rackham notes that "The medieval practice of shredding - cropping the side-branches of a tree leaving a tuft at the top - vanished from Britain long ago. Only at Haresfield (Gloucestershire) have I seen a few ancient ashes that may once have been shredded"
Another name for cutting side branches off trees, used mainly in Northern England, is snagging.
Other similar woodland management techniques include pollarding and coppicing.
Shredding, shred, or shredder may refer to:
Shredding refers to the process in bioinformatics of taking assembled sequences and disassembling them into short sequences of usually 500 to 750 base pairs (bp). This is generally done for the purpose of taking the short shredded sequences and reapplying various analysis and bioinformatic techniques.
Usage examples of "shredding".
The frenzied animal continued its attack, sequentially shredding and avulsing all four extremities of the almost headless torso.
The bullets rattled out, their thunder shredding the air, and the defaulter twitched backwards, his uniform tearing and his skin rupturing.
A hail of bullets ripped through a group of tables and chairs close by, shredding the husked corpses seated there, and sending fountains of splinters and broken crockery into the air.
Both arrows whizzed past him, the rusty iron head of the second one nicking and shredding the seam of his kurta, and buried themselves in the side of the knoll.
Betsy and Ginger had accompanied Louis on the stump, Ginger sat on the edge of Grange Hall st agings swinging her attractive legs and shredding the red, white, and blue bunting with her three-inch heels, all the while complaining of the rigors of political wifehood and wondering whether she was going to end up with her own ritzy rehab clinic someday, just like Betty Ford.
The smooth, gray iron tips gleamed dully in the torchlight, round and barbless, the weapon relying on sheer force of impact, rather than the shredding effect of the warhead for its killing capacity.
His fire cut across the ground like a lash of flame, shredding moss and Medusan with equal abandon, yet he could fire in only one direction at a time, and still more armed natives were erupting out of other holes in the ground.
Exposed to the intense heat, the chemical compounds ignited in a flash explosion that sent the huge body of the Melodist flying across the choreochamber, shredding its limbs along the way and carbonizing its integument.
The ants were swarming over the others, the dead and dying warriors, his fellows, his humans, being peeled open and apart by too many claws and pincers and mandibles snapping, plassteel shredding and no one getting a chance to fire enough to stop the peeling, shredding, swarming mandibles with globular eyes.
The other woman plucked a piece of broadleaf grass, then began absently shredding it, her expression intent.
I see no reason not to buy a fresh gingerroot, peel it, and run it through the shredding blade of your food processor, then chop the resulting shreds still further with your S-blade.
The flying metal mites swirled around their victims like a cloud of angry wasps, then struck like tiny buzz saws, shredding the men, stripping cloth and skin, sending out a spray of blood and bits of ground-up flesh.
Moments later the monster plowed into the deserted pavilion like a reaping machine, flailing and snapping with its pedipalpi, shredding thick fabric, crushing tentpoles.
Hard by the mainmast pinrail, shredding a leg of roast lamb with neat teeth, Dhirken tipped him a guileless glance.
The metal hail ripped through the reanimated gibber-thing, vaporizing its skulls, splintering limbs, and shredding its pelt.