English
section
Pronunciation
  • (RP, GA) enPR: sĕk′shən, IPA: /ˈsɛkʃən/
Noun

section (plural sections)

  1. A cutting; a part cut out from the rest of something.
  2. A part, piece, subdivision of anything.
    1. (music) A group of instruments in an orchestra.
      The horn section is the group of symphonic musicians who play the French horn.
  3. A part of a document.
  4. An act or instance of cutting.
  5. A cross-section (image that shows an object as if cut along a plane).
    1. (aviation) A cross-section perpendicular the longitudinal axis of an aircraft in flight.
  6. (surgery) An incision or the act of making an incision.
    1. (surgery, colloquial) Short for Caesarean section#English|Caesarean section.
  7. (sciences) A thin slice of material prepared as a specimen for research.
  8. (botany) A taxonomic rank below the genus (and subgenus if present), but above the species.
  9. (zoology) An informal taxonomic rank below the order ranks and above the family ranks.
  10. (military) A group of 10-15 soldiers led by a non-commissioned officer and forming part of a platoon.
  11. (category theory) A right inverse.
  12. (NZ) A piece of residential land; a plot.
  13. (Canadian) A one-mile square area of land, defined by a government survey.
  14. (US, historical) Any of the squares, each containing 640 acres, into which the public lands of the United States were divided.
  15. The symbol §, denoting a section of a document.
  16. (geology) A sequence of rock layers.
Synonyms Antonyms Translations Translations Translations Translations
  • Russian: разреза́ние
Translations
  • Russian: разре́з
Translations Translations Verb

section (sections, present participle sectioning; past and past participle sectioned) (transitive)

  1. To cut, divide or separate into pieces.
  2. To reduce to the degree of thinness required for study with the microscope.
  3. (British) To commit (a person, to a hospital, with or without their consent), as for mental health reasons. So called after various sections of legal acts regarding mental health.
    • 1998, Diana Gittins, Madness in its Place: Narratives of Severalls Hospital, 1913-1997, Routledge, ISBN 978-0-415-18388-8, page 45 ↗:
      Tribunals were set up as watchdogs in cases of compulsory detention (sectioning). […] Informal patients, however, could be sectioned, and this was often a fear of patients once they were in hospital.
    • ante 2000 Lucy Johnstone, Users and Abusers of Psychiatry: A Critical Look at Psychiatric Practice, Second Edition, Routledge (2000), ISBN 978-0-415-21155-0, page xiv ↗:
      The doctor then sectioned her, making her an involuntary patient, and had her moved to a secure ward.
    • 2006, Mairi Colme, A Divine Dance of Madness, Chipmunkapublishing, ISBN 978-1-84747-023-2, page 5 ↗:
      After explaining that for 7 years, from ’88 to ’95, I was permanently sectioned under the Mental Health act, robbed of my freedom, my integrity, my rights, I wrote at the time;- ¶ […]
  4. (medical) To perform a cesarean section on (someone).
    • 2012, Anne Fraser, St. Piran's: Daredevil, Doctor...Dad!, Harlequin, page 16:
      "But if she's gone into active labour she could be bleeding massively and you may have to section her there and then."
    • 2008, Murray et al, Labor and Delivery Nursing: Guide to Evidence-Based Practice, Springer Publishing Company, page 57:
      You may hear a physician say, "I don't want to section her until the baby declares itself."
Translations Translations

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