one of the parts into which something naturally separates or is divided; a division, portion, or section: a segment of an orange.
Geometry.
a part cut off from a figure, especially a circular or spherical one, by a line or plane, as a part of a circular area contained by an arc and its chord or by two parallel lines or planes.
Also called line segment.a finite section of a line.
Zoology.
any of the rings that compose the body of an annelid or arthropod.
any of the discrete parts of the body of an animal, especially of an arthropod.
an object, as a machine part, having the form of a segment or sector of a circle.
Computers.
a portion of a program, often one that can be loaded and executed independently of other portions.
a unit of data in a database.
an arclike support on which the typebars of a typewriter rest when not in use.
verb (used with or without object)
to separate or divide into segments.
Origin of segment
1560–70; < Latinsegmentum, equivalent to sec(āre) to cut + -mentum-ment
1560s, from Latin segmentum "a strip or piece cut off, a cutting, strips of colored cloth," from secare "to cut" (see section (n.)), with euphonious alteration of -c- to -g- before -m-. Latin segmentum was used in Medieval Latin as a geometry term, translating Greek tmema, and the word was first picked up in English in this sense. Meaning "segmental portion of anything circular" is from 1640s; general sense of "a division, section" is from 1762.
segment
v.
1859, intransitive, in reference to cell division, from segment (n.). Transitive sense, "divide (something) into segments" is from 1872. Related: Segmented; segmenting.
