a division into or distribution in portions or shares.
2.
a separation, as of two or more things.
3.
something that separates or divides.
4.
a part, division, or section.
5.
an interior wall or barrier dividing a room, area of a building, enclosure, etc., into separate areas.
6.
a septum or dissepiment, as in a plant or animal structure.
7.
Law.a division of property among joint owners or tenants in common or a sale of such property followed by a division of the proceeds.
8.
Logic.the separation of a whole into its integrant parts.
9.
Mathematics.
a.
a mode of separating a positive whole number into a sum of positive whole numbers.
b.
the decomposition of a set into disjoint subsets whose union is the original set: A partition of the set (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) is the collection of subsets (1), (2, 3), (4), and (5).
10.
Rhetoric. (in a speech organized on classical principles) the second, usually brief section or part in which a speaker announces the chief lines of thought to be discussed in support of his or her theme.
Origin: 1400–50;late Middle English < Latinpartītiōn- (stem of partītiō) division, equivalent to partīt(us) past participle of partīrī to divide (see party) + -iōn--ion
c.1430, "division into shares, distinction," from O.Fr. particion, from L. partitionem (nom. partitio) "division, portion," from partitus, pp. of partire "to part" (see part (v.)). Sense of "that which separates" first recorded 1486. The verb is from 1741.
A division of a nation or territory into two or more nations. Cyprus, Germany, India, Ireland, Korea, Palestine, and Vietnam are notable examples of countries that have undergone partition.
1. A logical section of a disk. Each partition normally has its own file system. Unix tends to treat partitions as though they were separate physical entities. 2. A division of a set into subsets so that each of its elements is in exactly one subset. (1996-12-09)