This week's theme: Words borrowed from Irish.

smithereens (smith-uh-REENZ) noun

   Tiny fragments.

[Probably from Irish smidirin, diminutive of smiodar (fragment).]

Today's word in Visual Thesaurus: http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=smithereens

-Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org)

  "[The heroine] finds herself being mistaken for someone else and
   falling, abruptly, down a rabbit hole -- her identity stolen, her
   daily life torpedoed, her most fundamental expectations about life
   blown to smithereens."
   Michiko Kakutani; A Misunderstanding, and a Simple Life Descends
   Into a Nightmare; The New York Times; May 8, 2007.

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Too often I would hear men boast of the miles covered that day, rarely of
what they had seen. -Louis L'Amour, novelist (1908-1988)

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Pronunciation:
http://wordsmith.org/words/smithereens.mp3

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