Sĕc'tion, n.
(sĭk/shun), n. [Lat. sectio, from secare, sectum, to cut off; Fr. section, Sp. seccion, It. sezione.]
Sense 1. The act of cutting, or of separation by cutting; as, the section of bodies.
Sense 2. A part separated from the rest; a division; a portion; as, specifically, (a.) A distinct part or portion of a book or writing; the subdivision of a chapter; the division of a law or other writing; a paragraph; an article; hence, the character §, often used to denote such a division. (b.) A distinct part of a country or people, community, class, or the like; a part of territory separated by geographical lines, or of a people considered as distinct. “The extreme section of one class consists of bigoted dotards, the extreme section of the other consists of shallow and reckless empirics.” Macaulay. (c.) One of the portions, of one square mile each, into which the public lands of the United States are divided; one thirty-sixth part of a township.
Sense 3. (Geom.) The intersection of two superficies, or of a superficies and a solid. In the former case, it is a line; in the latter, a surface.
Sense 4. (Mil.) Half a platoon of infantry.
Sense 5. (Mus.) A part of a musical period, composed of one or more phrases.
Sense 6. The description or representation of any thing as it would appear if cut through by any intersecting plane; depiction of what is cut by a plane passing through, or supposed to pass through, an object, as a building, a machine, a succession of strata; profile.
☞— In mechanical drawing, a longitudinal section (a) usually represents the object as cut through its center lengthwise and vertically; a cross or transverse section (b), as cut crosswise and vertically; and a horizontal section (c), as cut through its center horizontally. Oblique sections are made at various angles.
Synonyms— Part; portion; division. — SECTOR, PART. The English more commonly apply the word section to a part or portion of a body of men; as, a section of the clergy, a small section of the Whigs, &c. In the United States this use is uncommon, but another use, unknown or but little known in England, is very frequent, as in the phrases “the eastern section of our country,” &c., the same sense being also given to the adjective sectional; as, sectional feelings, interests, &c. This, perhaps, arose from our public lands being surveyed and divided into squares of 640 acres each, called sections, which has made the term in this sense prevalent throughout the United States.