partition

American  

[pahr-tish-uhn, per-] / pɑrˈtɪʃ ən, pər- /

noun

partitions plural

1. a division into or distribution in portions or shares.

   Upon the magnate's death, the family began the complicated partition of his possessions.

2. a separation, as of two or more things.

   The Renaissance was marked by the partition of religion and philosophy.

   Antonyms:

   unity

3. something that separates or divides.

   Is the partition between menswear and womenswear finally falling in the fashion industry?

4. an interior wall or barrier dividing a room, area of a building, enclosure, etc., into separate areas.

   There was a sliding, floor-to-ceiling partition between the bedroom and the living area.

5. a part, division, or section.

   One partition of the barn was filled with hay, and he burrowed into it to hide.

6. a septum or dissepiment, as in a plant or animal structure.

7. 1. the division of a country or territory into separate, usually differing political entities.

      Movement of goods and labor was fairly free between the UK and Ireland after partition—until the Troubles.

   2. Usually Partition the division of a large part of the Indian subcontinent into India and Pakistan in 1947.

      A decade after Partition, many families were still choosing to migrate to Pakistan.

8. 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.

9. Computers. a section of storage space on a hard disk or device, devoted to a particular type of information and read and written to by the operating system or systems as if it were a separate disk or device.

   This suite of tools allows you to maximize disk space by creating, resizing, moving, merging, and splitting partitions without losing data.

10. Logic. the act of analyzing a whole by breaking it down into its constituent parts.

11. Mathematics.

    1. a mode of separating a positive whole number into a sum of positive whole numbers.

    2. 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).

12. 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 their theme.

---

verb (used with object)

partitions, present (3rd person singular) partitioned, past participle, past partitioning present participle

1. to divide into parts, sections, or portions.

   In Western culture, our lives tend to be partitioned into distinct domains, making it almost impossible to view life as a whole.

   Synonyms:

   apportion, portion

   Antonyms:

   unite

2. to divide or separate by interior walls, barriers, or the like (sometimes followed byoff ).

   They partitioned off a dormitory into cubicles.

3. to divide (a country or territory) into separate, usually differing political entities.

   The Geneva Accord partitioned Vietnam at the 17th parallel, with a Communist-led North and the Republic of Vietnam in the South.

4. Law. to divide property among several owners, either in specie or by sale and division of the proceeds.

5. Computers. to divide (a hard disk or the data stored in it) into sections for different kinds of information, to be read and written to by the operating system or systems as if each section were a separate disk or device.

   I partitioned the drive, storing my media library separately from my operating system and games.

partition British  

/ pɑːˈtɪʃən /

noun

1. a division into parts; separation

2. something that separates, such as a large screen dividing a room in two

3. a part or share

4. a division of a country into two or more separate nations

5. property law a division of property, esp realty, among joint owners

6. maths any of the ways by which an integer can be expressed as a sum of integers

7. logic maths

   1. the division of a class into a number of disjoint and exhaustive subclasses

   2. such a set of subclasses

8. biology a structure that divides or separates

9. rhetoric the second part of a speech where the chief lines of thought are announced

---

verb

1. (often foll by off) to separate or apportion into sections

   to partition a room off with a large screen

2. to divide (a country) into two or more separate nations

3. property law to divide (property, esp realty) among joint owners, by dividing either the property itself or the proceeds of sale

partition Cultural  

1. 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.

---

Synonym Usage

See division.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• partitioner
  noun
• partitionist
  noun
• partitionment
  noun
• prepartition
  noun
• subpartition
  noun
• subpartitionment
  noun
• partitionable
  adjective
• partitionary
  adjective
• subpartitioned
  adjective
• unpartitioned
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• partitions
  plural

Participles

• partitioning
  present
• partitioned
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• partition
  simple
• partitions
  simple
• have partitioned
  perfect
• has partitioned
  perfect
• am partitioning
  progressive
• are partitioning
  progressive
• is partitioning
  progressive
• have been partitioning
  perfect progressive
• has been partitioning
  perfect progressive

Past

• partitioned
  simple
• had partitioned
  perfect
• was partitioning
  progressive
• were partitioning
  progressive
• had been partitioning
  perfect progressive

Future

• will partition
  simple
• will have partitioned
  perfect
• will be partitioning
  progressive
• will have been partitioning
  perfect progressive

Etymology

Origin of partition

First recorded in 1400–50; late Middle English from Latin partītiōn- (stem of partītiō ) “division,” equivalent to partīt(us) past participle of partīrī “to divide” ( see party) + -iōn- -ion

Explanation

A partition is something that divides space. When your younger brother decides to stop bathing, setting up a partition between his side of the room and yours seems like a good idea...until you realize your partition is not air-tight. Partition can be used as a noun or as a verb. As a noun, it usually refers to a physical barrier between spaces. As a verb, to partition is to separate into sections — like to partition an office space into different work spaces. One can also partition something that does not involve physical space — like when you partition school life from home life, you are splitting your life into two parts that don’t intersect.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

partition partitions partitioned partitioning

Following India's partition in 1947 the state of Punjab was split between India and Pakistan.

From BBC ● Jul. 6, 2026

The film, whose title means "I will return", tells the story of a romance that survives nearly eight decades, inspired by real-life accounts from families affected by the 1947 partition of India and Pakistan.

From Barron's ● Jun. 10, 2026

Three years ago, he did not know the Punjabi language or what happened during the India and Pakistan partition in 1947 after British rule ended.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 21, 2026

The partition that once sealed out the cranks and mediocrities has been permanently sundered.

From Slate ● Mar. 6, 2026

Mamou had this stained glass partition separating the living room from the dining room, and the light filtering through it cast constellations of color across my family’s faces.

From "Darius the Great Is Not Okay" by Adib Khorram

The furniture and partitions were made from plastics and laminates, so they cost far less.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 21, 2025

The BBC has previously documented how two partitions have been constructed in Gaza since the start of the current war.

From BBC ● Nov. 28, 2024

They erected partitions of wood, cardboard and cloth, built shacks within rooms and cooked on paraffin stoves.

From New York Times ● May 6, 2024

She prefers to dine among other patrons and doesn’t like partitions keeping her from other diners — making her silver hair highly recognizable when she’s out and about.

From Seattle Times ● Apr. 8, 2024

There are partitions and corridors, nice offices around the perimeter, paintings and posters everywhere, bright and cheery, but it's still like a maze.

From "Things Not Seen" by Andrew Clements

In 1880, three-quarters of all Jews in the world lived in Eastern Europe—specifically, in the territory of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, partitioned a century before by Austria, Prussia and Russia.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 5, 2026

They are in a building with wooden ceiling beams, in an area that appears to be partitioned off with black curtains, with at least one security agent on the perimeter.

From Barron's ● Feb. 28, 2026

It was partitioned by a huge black grand piano on which was mounted a large, silver-framed autographed picture of Walt Disney himself.

From Salon ● Mar. 29, 2025

These small segments are partitioned off from one another, which “seals off the fluid and makes a water balloon,” explains Bruce Jayne, a biology professor and animal locomotion researcher at the University of Cincinnati.

From Slate ● Mar. 8, 2024

Bill and Woody contributed a blanket each and partitioned off the first room: one side for Bill and Tomi, one side for Woody and Chizu and their baby girl.

From "Farewell to Manzanar" by Jeanne Houston

Holtz's study, "Bringing up baby: preliminary exploration of the effect of ontogenetic niche partitioning in dinosaurs versus long-term maternal care in mammals in their respective ecosystems," was published in the Italian Journal of Geosciences.

From Science Daily ● Feb. 27, 2026

And Starbucks Korea warned this month that a minority of people are going further than just laptops, such as bringing in desktop monitors, printers, partitioning off desks or leaving tables unattended for long periods.

From BBC ● Aug. 22, 2025

In an agreement partitioning the Black Sea Fleet after the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia agreed to pay Ukraine to lease a naval base in Sevastopol.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 15, 2023

Data collected in Yellowstone before, during, and after wolf reintroduction provides a window into how the species have found a way to warily coexist by partitioning the landscape.

From National Geographic ● Aug. 25, 2023

Aristotle was wrong in his partitioning of male and female contributions into “material” and “message,” but abstractly, he had captured one of the essential truths about the nature of heredity.

From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee

Related Words

• barrier
• dissolution
• segregation
• separation