a "shred", i.e., anything severed, as a fragment of earthenware (Job 2:8; Pr 26:23; Isa 45:9).

heres. "Sherd," anything "serered". A piece of earthenware broken. Pr 26:23, "burning lips (lips professing burning love) and a wicked heart are like a potsherd (a fragment of common earthenware) silvered over with dross"; implying "roughness, dryness, and brittleness". Ps 22:15, "my strength is dried up like a potsherd" or earthen vessel exposed to heat; the drying up of the vital juices caused Christ's excessive thirst (Joh 19:28). In Job 2:8 not a potsherd but an instrument for scratching is meant. Isa 45:9, i.e. whatever good one might promise himself from striving with his fellow creature of earth, to strive with one's Maker is suicidal madness (Isa 27:4).

A fragment of pottery, to which man is compared when he strives with his Maker. Isa 45:9. David quotes the word in the Psalm prophetical of the Lord's sacrificial sufferings, "My strength is dried up like a potsherd." Ps 22:15. It is employed literally in Job 2:8; Pr 26:23, and translated 'sherd' in Isa 30:14; Eze 23:34.

Potsherd,

also in Authorized Version "sherd," a broken piece of earthenware.

Pr 26:23