Is there any difference between "break the record" and "shatter the record"? Break the record makes me think about sports or something. How about shatter the record? I wanted to express like new COVID cases set the record again. Thank you in advance.

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Sometimes people will say "shattered the record" to mean that they not only broke the record, but did so by an amazing amount of accomplishment.

If Michael Phelps broke a record by a fraction of a second, it's still a record that's broken. But if Michael Phelps broke a record by several seconds that left everyone far behind, and not even close to meeting or beating, he would have shattered the record.

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Good answer from Marlana. "Shattered the record" means the person broke it by a lot.

(You could also shatter an old 78rpm record. They were very brittle. But I don't think that's what you were asking.)