section
Pluralsections
Pluralsections
Formssections, sectioning, sectioned
- 1A part, piece, or subdivision of a larger whole.
A section of the highway near the bridge will be closed for repairs through the end of the month.
The rear section of the plane was almost empty on the flight home.
Similarpart, segment, division, portion, subdivision
- 2A part of a document, especially a major one, often marked with the symbol §.
The lawyer pointed to section four of the agreement.
Updates to the policy were added in a new section.
UsageBefore a number it needs no article: in section 4 of the contract, often written Section 4 or § 4.
- 3A group of musicians playing instruments of the same family together within an orchestra or band.
The conductor signaled the woodwind section to come in.
Each section tuned its instruments before the concert began.
UsageNamed by the instrument: string section, brass section. It usually takes a singular verb: the brass section is too loud.
Note
The orchestra's families, counted by the people who play them: the horn section is the group of musicians on French horn, not the instruments in their cases.
Less common meanings
- 4An image showing an object as if it had been cut along a plane to reveal its interior.
The textbook shows a section of the human heart, revealing all four of its chambers.
The architect's drawings included a section through the house, showing how the staircase rises between the floors.
UsageA set phrase after an adjective, with no article: flat in section, round in section.
Similarcutaway
Note
A drafter's view rather than a real slice, because nothing is actually cut. It gives the useful phrase in section, which describes an object's shape as such a view would show it. Gwen White's Antique Toys And Their Background (1971) describes toy animals as "flat in section."
- 5A piece cut out and separated from the rest of something.
She sawed a two-foot section off the fallen trunk and rolled it home to use as a stool.
A small section taken from the stem was used to grow a new plant.
Note
The plainest sense, and the one closest to the word's origin: Latin sectiō, "a cutting," from secāre, "to cut," the root English also shares with saw. A section here is the piece itself, such as a slice from a frozen sample or a length of stem, rather than the act of cutting. The specimen and surgical uses keep the same idea of cutting.
Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- English section derives from Latin sectiō. en.wiktionary.org
- Latin sectiō means a cutting and derives from secāre, to cut. en.wiktionary.org
- Section and saw share an Indo-European root. en.wiktionary.org
- 6To cut or divide something into parts, especially to cut material into thin slices for study under a microscope.
The biologist sectioned the tissue for examination.
Workers section the field into plots before planting.
- 7Short form of Caesarean section.
Her first child was delivered by section.
Doctors scheduled a section because of complications.
UsageUsed like the full term: she had a section, or with no article after by: delivered by section.
Note
A shortened form that keeps the whole meaning: on its own, the word stands for the full Caesarean operation. It also forms compounds, as in "my section scar" in Philippa Kaye's Doctors Get Cancer Too (2021).
- 8To deliver a baby by performing a cesarean section on the mother.
The surgeon sectioned the patient after labor stalled.
After twenty hours of labor with no progress, the obstetrician chose to section her rather than wait any longer.
UsageThe mother is usually the object: they sectioned her. Make the birth clear, since to section someone can also mean to detain them for mental health care.
Note
Doctors section a patient when they perform a cesarean on her. It belongs to the talk of delivery rooms, as in "I don't want to section her until the baby declares itself."
- 9A thin slice of material prepared as a specimen for research, usually examined under a microscope.
The technician mounted the section on a slide and viewed it in polarized light.
Each rock section was ground down until light could pass through it.
Note
Also called a thin section, and thinness is the whole point. A slice of rock, bone or tissue is cut or ground until light passes through it, about 30 micrometers for rock and thinner still for tissue. At that thickness its internal structure can be read under a microscope. Geologists and histologists both rely on it, and preparing one is sectioning a specimen.
- 10A unit of land area equal to one square mile, used especially in Canadian surveys and in American land grants and legal property descriptions.
The homesteader filed a claim to a full section of open prairie.
Each section in the township was further divided into smaller lots for settlers.
Note
A surveyor's and lawyer's unit in the United States and Canada: one square mile, or 640 acres, and thirty-six of them make a survey township. It appears in land grants and legal property descriptions, where a parcel is located by its section. The scale is the opposite extreme from the New Zealand house plot.
Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 6 facts
- In United States land surveys, a standard section is one square mile or 640 acres. sos.mo.gov
- Canadian survey townships contain 36 standard sections, each one square mile or 640 acres. www1.agric.gov.ab.ca
- A standard United States survey township contains 36 sections. or.blm.gov
- Land grants contain descriptions locating the granted parcels. canada.ca
- Section identifiers form part of legal land descriptions. blm.gov
- A New Zealand residential section is much smaller than a square-mile survey section. teara.govt.nz
- 11A small unit of soldiers led by a non-commissioned officer and forming part of a platoon; in British, Canadian and Australian infantry, typically eight to ten soldiers, the equivalent of a US squad.
The corporal led his section across the open ground.
Two sections combined to secure the bridge.
Similarsquad
Note
A small sub-unit of infantry, usually split into two fire teams of four that take turns moving and shooting in fire and maneuver. Two or more sections make up a platoon.
- 12The typographic symbol §, used to denote a part of a document.
- 13The act of cutting through something, especially an incision made during surgery.
Surgical section of the damaged nerve finally relieved the patient's pain.
The operation required section of the tendon just above the ankle.
Similarcutting
- 14One of several groups of students taught separately in the same course or grade, meeting regularly with a teacher during a school year, semester or quarter; a class.
Professor Lee teaches three sections of introductory biology this semester.
I got moved to the morning section of algebra after the schedule changed.
Similarclass
Note
In American, Canadian, and Philippine schools and universities, a section is a class understood as a body of students: the group that meets with its teacher through a given year, semester, or quarter. The word names the group, not the subject they study, so one course can run several sections meeting separately.
- 15A piece of land set aside for housing; a building plot on which a dwelling stands or may be built.
They bought a quarter-acre section on the edge of town and drew up house plans.
Half the sections in the new subdivision had already been sold before the road was paved.
Note
New Zealand English uses section where other speakers might say plot: the piece of ground a house stands on or will be built on. It is the everyday word of house-buying and new suburbs, as in a quarter-acre section or sections in a new subdivision. Readers from North America may picture something far larger, because there the square-mile unit has the same name.
Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 1 fact
- In North American land surveying, a section is a square-mile unit. or.blm.gov
- 16To commit a person to a hospital for mental health treatment as an involuntary patient, under the relevant mental health law.
Doctors decided to section him after he became a danger to others.
The hospital sectioned her under the Mental Health Act when she refused treatment.
UsageMost often passive: be sectioned under the Mental Health Act. Sectioning names the detention itself.
Note
This legal sense, used in the UK, Australia and New Zealand, takes its name from the numbered sections of mental health acts. To be sectioned is to be detained under one of them.
- 17A taxonomic rank below the genus, and below the subgenus where present, but above the species.
- 18In geology or archaeology, a sequence of rock or soil layers as exposed in a vertical cut or recorded in order, or a drawing of it.
- 19A length of rolled or formed metal, such as steel, with a standard cross-section (I, H, channel, T, angle or hollow), used as a structural member.
- 20A cross-section taken perpendicular to the lengthwise axis of an aircraft in flight.
- 21An unofficial taxonomic rank used to group organisms at a level between order and family.
- 22A function generalizing the notion of a function's graph; formally, a continuous right inverse to the projection map of a fiber bundle.
- 23A right inverse of a morphism in a category: a morphism that, when followed by the original, gives the identity.
- 24An element of the set that a sheaf or presheaf assigns to an open set; the notion extends sections of fiber bundles to this more general setting.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
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Origin
This word came through Middle English seccioun and Old French section from Latin sectiō ("a cutting, cutting off"), from sectus, the past participle of secāre ("to cut").
Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- Section came through Middle English seccioun and Old French section from Latin sectiō. en.wiktionary.org
- Latin sectiō means cutting or cutting off. en.wiktionary.org
- Sectiō derives from sectus, the past participle of secāre, meaning to cut. en.wiktionary.org