sectioning

Pluralsectionings (some meanings)

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of section.

   The editor is sectioning the manuscript so each chapter stands on its own.

   Carefully sectioning the orange, she removed every bit of pith.

   Note

   One spelling serves every trade the verb section works in: slicing tissue thin enough for the microscope, performing a cesarean, cutting fruit into pieces, or committing someone to psychiatric care. As a verb form it takes a direct object (sectioning the sample). Once it takes "the" and "of", or a plural like sectionings, it has become the noun for a division.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The act of dividing something into separate parts or segments.

   The sectioning of the survey into themed blocks simplified the analysis.

   Editors praised the clear sectioning of the lengthy report.

   Similardivision, segmentation, partitioning

3. 3
   nounAustraliaNew ZealandUKcountable

   An occasion on which a person is compulsorily detained in a psychiatric hospital under the UK Mental Health Act.

   Her sectioning came after weeks of escalating crisis at home.

   The tribunal reviewed the sectioning to decide whether continued detention was justified.

   Similarcommittal, detention, commitment

   Oppositedischarge, release

   Note

   A word from British, Australian and New Zealand psychiatric care, and a countable one. Researchers tally sectionings the way they tally admissions; Psychology, Discourse and Social Practice (2005) reports black women making up as much as half of them. Outside those countries the term may puzzle readers. Even within them it can sound like cutting tissue, so it reads most clearly with a person attached: her sectioning.

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