Section /(?)/

Sec·tion

Section

n.
  1. The act of cutting, or separation by cutting; as, the section of bodies.
  2. A part separated from something; a division; a portion; a slice.
  3. A distinct part or portion of a book or writing; a 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.
    It is hardly possible to give a distinct view of his several arguments in distinct sections.
  4. A distinct part of a country or people, community, class, or the like; a part of a 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.
  5. 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. These sections are subdivided into quarter sections for sale under the homestead and preemption laws.
  6. The figure made up of all the points common to a superficies and a solid which meet, or to two superficies which meet, or to two lines which meet. In the first case the section is a superficies, in the second a line, and in the third a point. (Geom.)
  7. A division of a genus; a group of species separated by some distinction from others of the same genus; -- often indicated by the sign §. (Nat. Hist.)
  8. A part of a musical period, composed of one or more phrases. See Phrase. (Mus.)
  9. The description or representation of anything as it would appear if cut through by any intersecting plane; depiction of what is beyond a plane passing through, or supposed to pass through, an object, as a building, a machine, a succession of strata; profile.

Phrases & Compounds
Angular sections
a branch of analysis which treats of the relations of sines, tangents, etc., of arcs to the sines, tangents, etc., of their multiples or of their parts.
Conic sections
See under Conic.
Section liner
an instrument to aid in drawing a series of equidistant parallel lines, -- used in representing sections.
Thin section
a section or slice, as of mineral, animal, or vegetable substance, thin enough to be transparent, and used for study under the microscope.