different between town vs zone

English

Alternative forms

• tahn, tawn (Bermuda),
• toune, towne (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English town, toun, from Old English t?n (“enclosure, garden”), from Proto-Germanic *t?n? (“fence”) (compare West Frisian tún, Dutch tuin (“garden”), German Zaun, Danish, Swedish and Norwegian tun), from Gaulish d?nom (“hill, hillfort”), from Proto-Celtic *d?nom (compare archaic Welsh din (“hill”), Irish dún (“fortress”)), from Proto-Indo-European *dewh?- (“to finish, come full circle”). Doublet of dun. See also -ton and tine (“to enclose”).

Pronunciation

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /ta?n/, [t?a??n]
• Rhymes: -a?n

Noun

town (countable and uncountable, plural towns)

1. A settlement; an area with residential districts, shops and amenities, and its own local government; especially one larger than a village and smaller than a city.
2. Any more urbanized center than the place of reference.
3. (Britain, historical) A rural settlement in which a market was held at least once a week.
4. The residents (as opposed to gown: the students, faculty, etc.) of a community which is the site of a university.
5. (colloquial) Used to refer to a town or similar entity under discussion.
6. (humorous, ironic) A major city, especially one where the speaker is located.
7. (law) A municipal organization, such as a corporation, defined by the laws of the entity of which it is a part.
8. (obsolete) An enclosure which surrounded the mere homestead or dwelling of the lord of the manor.
9. (obsolete) The whole of the land which constituted the domain.
10. (obsolete) A collection of houses enclosed by fences or walls.

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

11. (Britain, Scotland, dialect, obsolete) A farm or farmstead; also, a court or farmyard.

Usage notes

• An urban city is typically larger than a rural town, which in turn is typically larger than a village. In rural areas, a town may be considered urban. In urban areas, a town can be considered suburban; a village in the suburbs. The distinctions are fluid and dependent on subjective perception.

Hypernyms

• settlement

Derived terms

Descendants

• ? Japanese: ??? (taun)

Translations

See also

• urban
• suburban
• rural

Anagrams

• nowt, wo'n't, won't, wont

Middle English

Noun

town

1. Alternative form of toun

English

Etymology

From Latin z?na, from Ancient Greek ???? (z?n?, “girdle, belt”).

Pronunciation

• (General American) enPR: z?n, IPA^(key): /zo?n/
• (Received Pronunciation), IPA^(key): /z??n/
• Rhymes: -??n

Noun

zone (plural zones)

1. (geography, now rare) Each of the five regions of the earth's surface into which it was divided by climatic differences, namely the torrid zone (between the tropics), two temperate zones (between the tropics and the polar circles), and two frigid zones (within the polar circles).
   • 1567, Arthur Golding, translating Ovid, Metamorphoses, I:

     And as two Zones doe cut the Heaven upon the righter side, / And other twaine upon the left likewise the same devide, / The middle in outragious heat exceeding all the rest: / Even so likewise through great foresight to God it seemed best, / The earth encluded in the same should so devided bee […].

   • 1841, George Bancroft, History of the United States, from the Discovery of the American Continent, Volume 2, page 270,

     And while idle curiosity may take its walk in shady avenues by the ocean side, commerce […] defies every wind, outrides every tempest, and invades every zone.

2. Any given region or area of the world.
3. A given area distinguished on the basis of a particular characteristic, use, restriction, etc.

   There is a no-smoking zone that extends 25 feet outside of each entrance.

   The white zone is for loading and unloading only.

   Files in the Internet zone are blocked by default, as a security measure.

4. A band or area of growth encircling anything.

   a zone of evergreens on a mountain; the zone of animal or vegetable life in the ocean around an island or a continent

5. A band or stripe extending around a body.
6. (crystallography) A series of planes having mutually parallel intersections.
7. (baseball, informal) The strike zone.

   That pitch was low and away, just outside of the zone.

8. (ice hockey) Every of the three parts of an ice rink, divided by two blue lines.

9. (handball) A semicircular area in front of each goal.
10. (chiefly sports) A high-performance phase or period.

    I just got in the zone late in the game: everything was going in.

11. (basketball, American football) A defensive scheme where defenders guard a particular area of the court or field, as opposed to a particular opposing player.
12. (networking) That collection of a domain's DNS resource records, the domain and its subdomains, that are not delegated to another authority.
13. (networking, dated) A logical group of network devices on AppleTalk (an obsolete networking protocol).
14. (now literary) A belt or girdle.
    • 17th c, John Dryden, 2005, Pygmalion and the Statue, Paul Hammond, David Hopkins (editors), The Poems of John Dryden: Volume Five: 1697-1700, page 263,

      Her tapered fingers too with rings are graced, / And an embroidered zone surrounds her slender waist.

    • 1671, John Milton, Paradise Regained, Book II, lines 211 to 220.

    • 1779, Thomas Forrest, A Voyage to New Guinea and the Moluccas from Balambangan, page 21,

      From the wai?t downwards, they wore a loo?e robe, girt with an embroidered zone or belt about the middle, with a large cla?p of gold, and a precious ?tone.

    • 18th c, William Collins, The Passions: An Ode for Music, 1810, Alexander Chalmers, Samuel Johnson (editors), The Works of the English Poets, from Chaucer to Cowper, Volume 13, page 204,

      Love fram'd with Mirth a gay fantastic round, / Loose were her tresses seen, her zone unbound,

    • 1819, Lord Byron, Don Juan, Canto I, LV, 1827, The Works of Lord Byron, including The Suppressed Poems, page 565,

      There was the Donna Julia, whom to call / Pretty were but to give a feeble notion / Of many charms in her as natural / As sweetness to the flower, or salt to ocean, / Her zone to Venus, or his bow to Cupid / (But this last simile is trite and stupid).

    • 1844, Charles Dickens, The life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit, 1865, Works of Charles Dickens, Volume VI: Martin Chuzzlewit—Volume II, page 421,

      […] it was the prettiest thing to see her girding on the precious little zone, and yet obliged to have assistance because her fingers were in such terrible perplexity; […].
15. (geometry) The curved surface of a frustum of a sphere, the portion of surface of a sphere delimited by parallel planes.
    • 1835, Charles Davies, David Brewster (editors and translators), Adrien-Marie Legendre, Elements of Geometry and Trigonometry, [1794, Eléments de géométrie], page 293,

      To find the surface of a spherical zone.

      Rule.—Multiply the altitude of the zone by the circumference of a great circle of the sphere, and the product will be the surface (Book VIII. Prop. X. Sch. 1).

    • 2014, John Bird, Engineering Mathematics, page 183,

      A zone of a sphere is the curved surface of a frustum. […] Determine, correct to 3 significant figures (a) the volume of the frustum of the sphere, (b) the radius of the sphere and (c) the area of the zone formed.

16. (geometry, loosely, perhaps by meronymy) A frustum of a sphere.
17. A circuit; a circumference.
    • 1667, John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book V, lines 558 to 560.

Synonyms

• (area distinguished on the basis of a particular characteristic etc): area, belt, district, region, section, sector, sphere, territory
• (baseball: strike zone):
• (handball: area in front of a goal): crease
• (high performance phase or period):
• (networking: that collection of a domain's DNS resource records):
• (computing: logical group of network devices on AppleTalk):
• (religion: belt worn by priests in the Greek Orthodox church):

Coordinate terms

• (religion: belt worn by priests in the Greek Orthodox church): alb, epigonation, epimanikion, epitrachelion, maniple, mitre, omophorion, rhason, sakkos, sticharion

Derived terms

Translations

See also

• zone file

Verb

zone (third-person singular simple present zones, present participle zoning, simple past and past participle zoned)

1. To divide into or assign sections or areas.

   Please zone off our staging area, a section for each group.

2. To define the property use classification of an area.

   This area was zoned for industrial use.

3. To enter a daydream state temporarily, for instance as a result of boredom, fatigue, or intoxication; to doze off.

   I must have zoned while he was giving us the directions.

   Everyone just put their goddamn heads together and zoned. (Byron Coley, liner notes for the album "Piece for Jetsun Dolma" by Thurston Moore)

4. To girdle or encircle.

Synonyms

• (enter a daydream state): zone out, doze off (if also sleeping; See Thesaurus:fall asleep).

Derived terms

• zonal
• zone in on
• zoner
• zoning

Translations

See also

• exclusion zone
• friend zone
• time zone
• zone out
• zoning law
• zone of employment

Anagrams

• Enzo, Zeno, noze, zeon

Danish

Etymology

From Latin z?na, from Ancient Greek ???? (z?n?, “girdle, belt”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /so?n?/, [?so?n?]
• Homophone: sone

Noun

zone c (singular definite zonen, plural indefinite zoner)

1. zone

Inflection

Synonyms

• område

Derived terms

Dutch

Etymology

Borrowed from French zone (or Middle French zone), via Middle French from Latin zona, from Ancient Greek ???? (z?n?).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?z??.n?/, [?z??n?]
• Hyphenation: zo?ne
• Rhymes: -??n?

Noun

zone f (plural zonen or zones, diminutive zonetje n)

1. zone

Derived terms

• zonaal
• milieuzone
• parkeerzone

Related terms

• zona

French

Etymology

From Latin z?na

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /zon/

Noun

zone f (plural zones)

1. zone

Derived terms

Verb

zone

1. first-person singular present indicative of zoner
2. third-person singular present indicative of zoner
3. first-person singular present subjunctive of zoner
4. third-person singular present subjunctive of zoner
5. second-person singular imperative of zoner

Further reading

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

Anagrams

• Enzo, onze

Italian

Noun

zone f

1. plural of zona

Anagrams

• Enzo

Portuguese

Verb

zone

1. first-person singular (eu) present subjunctive of zonar
2. third-person singular (ele and ela, also used with você and others) present subjunctive of zonar
3. third-person singular (você) affirmative imperative of zonar
4. third-person singular (você) negative imperative of zonar

Romanian

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [?zo.ne]

Noun

zone f pl

1. plural of zon?