area
Americannoun
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areas
plural
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any particular extent of space or surface; part.
the dark areas in the painting;
the dusty area of the room.
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a geographical region; tract: the unsettled areas along the frontier.
the Chicago area;
the unsettled areas along the frontier.
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any section reserved for a specific function: the dining area of a house.
the business area of a town;
the dining area of a house.
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extent, range, or scope.
inquiries that embrace the whole area of science.
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field of study, or a branch of a field of study.
Related areas of inquiry often reflect borrowed notions.
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a piece of unoccupied ground; an open space.
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the space or site on which a building stands; the yard attached to or surrounding a house.
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British. areaway.
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the quantitative measure of a plane or curved surface; two-dimensional extent.
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Anatomy. a zone of the cerebral cortex having a specific function.
The damage to Broca's area affected his speech.
noun
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any flat, curved, or irregular expanse of a surface
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the extent of a two-dimensional surface enclosed within a specified boundary or geometric figure
the area of Ireland
the area of a triangle
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the two-dimensional extent of the surface of a solid, or of some part thereof, esp one bounded by a closed curve
the area of a sphere
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a section, portion, or part
an area of the body
an area of the sky
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region; district; locality
a mountainous area
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a geographical division of administrative responsibility
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( as modifier )
area manager
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a part or section, as of a building, town, etc, having some specified function or characteristic
reception area
commercial area
slum area
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Also called: areaway. a sunken area, usually enclosed, giving light, air, and sometimes access to a cellar or basement
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the range, extent, or scope of anything
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a subject field or field of study
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any unoccupied or unused flat open piece of ground
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the ground on which a building stands, or the ground surrounding a building
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anatomy any of the various regions of the cerebral cortex
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computing any part of a computer memory assigned to store data of a specified type
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of area
First recorded in 1530–40; fram Latin ārea “vacant piece of level ground, open space in a town, threshing floor”; perhaps akin to ārēre “to be dry”; see also arid
Explanation
The area is a part of a place, usually defined by a function. If you can't stop talking, don't sit in the quiet area of the library. In Latin, area means a vacant piece of ground, but we use it in English to talk about a region or place that's a subset of another larger region. The boarding area in the airport is the space right next to the door. Area is also used to describe topics or subjects of study or work. Within a big history department, professors have different areas of specialty, from medieval economics to urban American politics.
Vocabulary lists containing area
Middle School Geometry, List 1
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Geometry - Introductory
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Scrabble: Four-Letter Words with 3 Vowels
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
But because Ebola strains like the Zaire variant were so lethal, they quickly ran out of new people to infect before they could move on to another area.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 6, 2026
The police then separated the protesters into two groups before moving them away from the area.
From BBC ● Aug. 6, 2026
"An hour or two of exposure is enough to trigger glycosylation, or the binding of smoke to the sugars in the grapes," said oenology consultant Clement Prelat, who is advising winemakers in the area.
From Barron's ● Aug. 6, 2026
"It's an example of machine learning opening up a whole new area of research."
From Science Daily ● Aug. 6, 2026
The hope is that opposing military forces will peacefully occupy the area, since there is no reason to fight.
From "At Last She Stood" by Erin Entrada Kelly
Maritime security firm Vanguard Tech told AFP three explosions rocked the ship on June 6, flooding several areas including the steering gear compartment and pump room.
From Barron's ● Aug. 6, 2026
Honeybees regularly visit these same areas while collecting nectar and pollen, raising questions about what happens when they are exposed to weedkillers during their daily foraging.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 6, 2026
Heavy speculative positioning can result in messy outcomes when it suddenly reverses, swinging global markets violently as speculators are forced to cut borrowing in unrelated areas.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 6, 2026
That may already be on the way, via a newly introduced council amendment that would allow bigger data centers to be sited in rural and agricultural areas instead of residential corners—a move the organizers oppose.
From Slate ● Aug. 6, 2026
Tomás was driving through the wealthier residential areas.
From "Storm Runners" by Roland Smith
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
