Section

How to spell section

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce section

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does section mean?

1. nounA distinct part or portion into which something is divided.
2. verbTo divide something into separate parts.

Section in a sentence

• noun

  The sports section of the newspaper covers the weekend matches.

• verb

  The surgeon will section the tissue carefully for the biopsy.

• noun

  Please read the safety section before operating the machine.

• verb

  Planners decided to section the land into smaller building plots.

Where does section come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Latin sectio, meaning 'a cutting' or 'the act of cutting', which was built on the verb secare, 'to cut'. In its earliest English use during the 1500s it referred quite literally to the cutting or division of something, including the surgical cutting of the body, a sense still alive in phrases like 'caesarean section' and 'cross section'. From that idea of a cut came the broader and now dominant meaning of a part or portion separated out from a larger whole, whether a slice of a document, a region of a city, or a department of an organisation. The same secare root cuts through a whole family of English words, including 'dissect', 'intersect', 'segment' and even 'insect' (an animal that looks notched or cut into parts). English took the term in by way of Latin and French, and the spelling stays close to the Latin, with the 'ct' cluster and the '-tion' ending that learners sometimes write as 'shun'.

How the word is built

• sect (from secare: to cut)
• -ion (noun suffix denoting an act or result)