The most common and most likely answer to this crossword clue is the 5 letter word SHARD
I've seen this crossword clue in The Times
S
H
A
R
D
More clues leading to the result SHARD
- Broken bit that's solid under surface of soil
- Fragment of glass, ultimately inflexible
- Shakespeare’s mess is intractable
- Quiet little street in which you may witness a scrap
- What archaeologists may find strenuous, spades to the fore
- 1/18D is difficult, a bit broken
- Head of showroom has demanding piece of pottery
- Glass shattered in vertiginous building
- Fragment of first shatterproof tough product?
- Quiet thoroughfare without a modern landmark
Buddy explains!
The straight part
We know that "Broken" is the straight/definition part of the clue. The straight part is often a synonym or definition, in this case broken = shard.The cryptic/wordplay part
In cryptic crossword there's often an wordplay/cryptic part as well.This part involves a more complex hint, such as an anagram, homophone, hidden word, etc.
Sadly, We don't have an explanation for this specific crossword clue yet.
What does SHARD mean?
SHARD noun- A piece of broken glass or pottery, especially one found in an archaeological dig.
- (by extension) A piece of material, especially rock and similar materials, reminding of a broken piece of glass or pottery.
- A tough scale, sheath, or shell; especially an elytron of a beetle.
- An instance of an MMORPG that is one of several independent and structurally identical virtual worlds, none of which has so many players as to exhaust a system's resources.
- A component of a sharded distributed database.
- (singular or plural) A piece of crystal methamphetamine.
- To fall apart into shards, usually as the result of impact or explosion.
- To break (something) into shards.
- To divide (an MMORPG) into several shards, or to establish a shard of one.
- The plant chard.