different between section vs tract

See Wiktionary:Entry layout for the Wiktionary style guide for sections

English

Etymology

From Middle English seccioun, from Old French section, from Latin sectio (“cutting, cutting off, excision, amputation of diseased parts of the body, etc.”), from sectus, past participle of secare (“to cut”). More at saw.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) enPR: s?k?sh?n, IPA^(key): /?s?k??n/
• Rhymes: -?k??n
• Hyphenation: sec?tion

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.

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.
7. (sciences) A thin slice of material prepared as a specimen for research.
9. (botany) A taxonomic rank below the genus (and subgenus if present), but above the species.
10. (zoology) An informal taxonomic rank below the order ranks and above the family ranks.
11. (military) A group of 10-15 soldiers led by a non-commissioned officer and forming part of a platoon.
12. (category theory) A right inverse.
13. (New Zealand) A piece of residential land; a plot.
14. (Canada) A one-mile square area of land, defined by a government survey.
15. (US, historical) Any of the squares, each containing 640 acres, into which the public lands of the United States were divided.
16. The symbol §, denoting a section of a document.
17. (geology) A sequence of rock layers.

Synonyms

• (botany, zoology): sectio

• cutting, slice, snippet
• division, part, slice, piece
• volume

Antonyms

• whole

Hyponyms

Coordinate terms

• (aviation): waterline, buttock line

Derived terms

• bisection
• dissection
• sectionman
• trisection

Related terms

Translations

Verb

section (third-person singular simple present sections, present participle sectioning, simple 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. (Britain) 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, 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.

   • a. 2000, Lucy Johnstone, Users and Abusers of Psychiatry: A Critical Look at Psychiatric Practice, Second Edition, Routledge (2000), ?ISBN, 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, 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;- […]

   Synonym: (Australia) schedule

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

Further reading

• section in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• section in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• section at OneLook Dictionary Search

Anagrams

• ecotins, noetics, notices

French

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin secti?.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /s?k.sj??/

Noun

section f (plural sections)

1. section (all meanings)

Further reading

• “section” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Anagrams

• notices

Interlingua

Etymology

From secar +? -ion, alternatively borrowed from Latin secti?.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /sek?ti?on/

Noun

section (plural sectiones)

1. (act of) cutting
2. (surgery) section (all meanings)
3. section
   1. separation by cutting
   2. portion, division, subdivision
   3. (natural history, military, etc.) section
4. (geometry, drawing, etc.) section

Derived terms

• dissection
• intersection
• resection
• trisection
• vivisection
• sectionar

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /t?ækt/
• Homophone: tracked
• Rhymes: -ækt

Etymology 1

From tractate, from Latin tractatus, or borrowed from Latin tractus, the perfect passive participle of trah?. Doublet of trait.

Noun

tract (plural tracts)

1. An area or expanse.
   • a very high mountain joined to the mainland by a narrow tract of earth

   • 1662, Thomas Fuller, History of the Worthies of England

     small tracks of ground

2. A series of connected body organs, as in the digestive tract.
3. A small booklet such as a pamphlet, often for promotional or informational uses.
4. A brief treatise or discourse on a subject.
   • 1731, Jonathan Swift, The Presbyterians Plea of Merit

     The church clergy at that writ the best collection of tracts against popery that ever appeared.

5. A commentator's view or perspective on a subject.
6. Continued or protracted duration, length, extent
   • 1843, Thomas Carlyle, Past and Present, book 2, ch. XIV, Henry of Essex

     Nay, in another case of litigation, the unjust Standard bearer, for his own profit, asserting that the cause belonged not to St. Edmund’s Court, but to his in Lailand Hundred, involved us in travellings and innumerable expenses, vexing the servants of St. Edmund for a long tract of time […]

7. Part of the proper of the liturgical celebration of the Eucharist for many Christian denominations, used instead of the alleluia during Lenten or pre-Lenten seasons, in a Requiem Mass, and on a few other penitential occasions.
8. (obsolete) Continuity or extension of anything.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Older to this entry?)

9. (obsolete) Traits; features; lineaments.
   • 1625, Francis Bacon, Of Simulation and Dissimulation

     The discovery of a man's self by the tracts of his countenance is a great weakness.

10. (obsolete) The footprint of a wild animal.

    • The Prophet Telemus […] mark'd the Tracts of every Bird that flew

11. (obsolete) Track; trace.
    • c. 1605–1608, William Shakespeare, Timon of Athens

      But flies an eagle flight, bold, and forth on, / Leaving no tract behind.

12. (obsolete) Treatment; exposition.
    • 1613, William Shakespeare, Henry VIII, Act I, Scene I

      The tract of every thing Would, by a good discourser, lose some life Which action's self was tongue to.

Synonyms

• (series of connected body organs): system

Related terms

Translations

Etymology 2

From Latin tractus, the participle stem of trahere (“to pull, drag”).

Verb

tract (third-person singular simple present tracts, present participle tracting, simple past and past participle tracted)

1. (obsolete) To pursue, follow; to track.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, II.i:

     Where may that treachour then (said he) be found, / Or by what meanes may I his footing tract?

2. (obsolete) To draw out; to protract.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Ben Jonson to this entry?)

Anagrams

• T-cart

French

Etymology

Borrowed from English tract.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /t?akt/

Noun

tract m (plural tracts)

1. flyer, circular, pamphlet

Derived terms

• tracter

Further reading

• “tract” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).