Other forms: segments
A segment is one identifiable part of a whole market. A market segment, target that segment, segment the audience.
Segmentation is dividing customers into groups likely to behave similarly, and it is the basis of nearly all marketing. Elsewhere, a segment is a piece of an orange, a part of a worm's body, and in geometry the part of a circle cut off by a line. As a verb, stressed differently, to segment is to divide into parts. Note segmented, and that the word means simply a piece cut off.
Latin segmentum comes from secare, to cut — the same verb as section, sector and dissect. A segment is a cut piece, whatever is being cut.
Proto-Indo-European
*sek-
Latin
segmentum — a piece cut off, a strip, segment of the earth, a strip of tinsel
English, today
segment
Built from
From Latin segmentum (“a piece cut off, a strip, segment of the earth, a strip of tinsel”), from secāre (“to cut”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA