Other forms: sections
A section is one separate part of a larger whole. A chapter of a report, a slice of an orange, a length of pipe.
The word is everywhere because almost anything divides: a section of the motorway, the sports section of a paper, section three of the Act. Medicine uses it precisely, since a section is a thin slice for a microscope, and a caesarean section is an operation. In building, a cross-section is a view of something cut through. The verb means to divide, or in Britain to detain somebody under mental health law.
1nounsectionOne of the parts into which something is divided.~98%
“The report has a section on staffing.”
2nounthinA thin slice cut from something for study.~2%
“They examined a section under the microscope.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 19 sentences found in the wild and placed 17 of them on a sense (2 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
A section is a cutting. Latin sectiō comes from secāre, to cut, so every section of a book is a slice taken off it.
Proto-Indo-European
*sek-
Latin
sectiō — cutting, cutting off, excision, amputation of diseased parts of the body, etc.
Old French
section
Middle English
seccioun
English, today
section
Built from
From Middle English seccioun, from Old French section, from Latin sectiō (“cutting, cutting off, excision, amputation of diseased parts of the body, etc.”), from sectus, past participle of secāre (“to cut”). More at saw.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA