section: [16] Section is one of a wide range of English words that go back to Latin secāre ‘cut’. Others include bisect [17], dissect [17], insect, intersect [17], secateurs [19], sector [16], and segment [16]. It goes back ultimately to the Indo- European base *sek- ‘cut’, which also produced English saw, scythe, sedge, and sickle. The immediate source of section itself was the Latin derivative sectiō ‘cutting’. => bisect, dissect, insect, saw, scythe, secateurs, sedge, segment, sickle
late 14c., "intersection of two straight lines; division of a scale;" from Old French section or directly from Latin sectionem (nominative sectio) "a cutting, cutting off, division," noun of action from past participle stem of secare "to cut," from PIE root *sek- "to cut" (cognates: Old Church Slavonic seko, sešti "to cut," se čivo "ax, hatchet;" Lithuanian isekti "to engrave, carve;" Albanian šate "mattock;" Old Saxon segasna, Old English sigðe "scythe;" Old English secg "sword," seax "knife, short sword;" Old Irish doescim "I cut;" Latin saxum "rock, stone").
From 1550s as "act of cutting or dividing." Meaning "subdivision of a written work, statute, etc." is from 1570s. Meaning "a part cut off from the rest" is from early 15c.
