noun
- a division into or distribution in portions or shares.
- a separation, as of two or more things.
- something that separates or divides.
- a part, division, or section.
- an interior wall or barrier dividing a room, area of a building, enclosure, etc., into separate areas.
- a septum or dissepiment, as in a plant or animal structure.
- 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.
- Logic. the separation of a whole into its integrant parts.
- Mathematics.
- a mode of separating a positive whole number into a sum of positive whole numbers.
- 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).
- 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.
verb (used with object)
- to divide into parts or portions.
- to divide or separate by interior walls, barriers, or the like (sometimes followed by off): to partition off a dormitory into cubicles.
- to divide (a country or territory) into separate, usually differing political entities.Compare Balkanize.
- Law. to divide property among several owners, either in specie or by sale and division of the proceeds.
noun
- a division into parts; separation
- something that separates, such as a large screen dividing a room in two
- a part or share
- a division of a country into two or more separate nations
- property law a division of property, esp realty, among joint owners
- maths any of the ways by which an integer can be expressed as a sum of integers
- logic maths
- the division of a class into a number of disjoint and exhaustive subclasses
- such a set of subclasses
- biology a structure that divides or separates
- rhetoric the second part of a speech where the chief lines of thought are announced
verb (tr)
- (often foll by off) to separate or apportion into sectionsto partition a room off with a large screen
- to divide (a country) into two or more separate nations
- property law to divide (property, esp realty) among joint owners, by dividing either the property itself or the proceeds of sale
v.1741, from partition (n.). Related: Partitioned; partitioning. n.early 15c., “division into shares, distinction,” from Old French particion (12c.), from Latin partitionem (nominative partitio) “a sharing, division, partition, distribution; method of dividing,” from past participle stem of partire “to part” (see part (v.)). Sense of “that which separates” first recorded late 15c. n.
- The act or process of dividing something into parts.
- The state of being so divided.
- A wall, septum, or other separating membrane in an organism.
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.