zerfleddern

• zerfledern (dated)

Late 18th century, of dialectal, especially East Central German, origin, from zer- +‎ fledern, the latter from Middle High German vlederen (“to flutter”), related with flattern, Fledermaus. The form with -dd- may be expressive or due to shortening before the syllables -el, -er (as in Hammer, Mutter, Widder). Perhaps also by association with unrelated fleddern (“to steal from a corpse or drunk man”).

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zerfleddern (third-person singular simple present zerfleddert, past tense zerfledderte, past participle zerfleddert, auxiliary haben)

1. to damage something delicate, chiefly a book or piece of paper, by handling it uncarefully; to tatter

• Some dictionaries still treat zerfledern as the main variant. However, the dd-form has been predominant since circa 1950 and by the early 21st century it was about 30 times commoner (see Ngrams).