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Topic vs Section - What's the difference?

topic | section |

As nouns the difference between topic and section

is that topic is subject; theme; a category or general area of interest while section is a cutting; a part cut out from the rest of something.

As an adjective topic

is topical.

As a verb section is

to cut, divide or separate into pieces.

topic

English

(wikipedia topic)

Alternative forms

* topick (obsolete)

Adjective

  • (l)

    • Noun

    (en noun)
  • Subject; theme; a category or general area of interest.
  • *{{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-03, volume=408, issue=8847, magazine=(The Economist)
    • , title= The machine of a new soul , passage=The yawning gap in neuroscientists’ understanding of their topic is in the intermediate scale of the brain’s anatomy. Science has a passable knowledge of how individual nerve cells, known as neurons, work. It also knows which visible lobes and ganglia of the brain do what. But how the neurons are organised in these lobes and ganglia remains obscure. Yet this is the level of organisation that does the actual thinking—and is, presumably, the seat of consciousness.}}
  • (Internet) Discussion thread.
  • (obsolete) An argument or reason.
  • * Bishop Wilkins
    • contumacious persons, who are not to be fixed by any principles, whom no topics can work upon
  • (obsolete, medicine) An external local application or remedy, such as a plaster, a blister, etc.
    • (Wiseman)

    Synonyms

    * subject

    Derived terms

    * topical * subtopic * off-topic * topic map

    External links

    * *

    Anagrams

    * * *

    section

    English

    (wikipedia section)

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A cutting; a part cut out from the rest of something.
  • A part, piece, subdivision of anything.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-28, author=(Joris Luyendijk)
    • , volume=189, issue=3, page=21, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= Our banks are out of control , passage=Seeing the British establishment struggle with the financial sector is like watching an alcoholic […].  Until 2008 there was denial over what finance had become. […]  But the scandals kept coming, and so we entered stage three – what therapists call "bargaining". A broad section of the political class now recognises the need for change but remains unable to see the necessity of a fundamental overhaul. Instead it offers fixes and patches.}}
  • A part of a document.
  • An act or instance of cutting.
  • A cross-section (image that shows an object as if cut along a plane).
  • # (aviation) A cross-section perpendicular the longitudinal axis of an aircraft in flight.
  • (surgery) An incision or the act of making an incision.
  • (sciences) A thin slice of material prepared as a specimen for research.
  • (senseid) A taxonomic rank below the genus (and subgenus if present), but above the species.
  • An informal taxonomic rank below the order ranks and above the family ranks.
  • (military) A group of 10-15 soldiers lead by a non-commissioned officer and forming part of a platoon.
  • (category theory) A right inverse.
  • (NZ) A piece of residential land usually a quarter of an acre in size; a plot.
  • (label) A one-mile square area of land, defined by a government survey.

    • Synonyms

    * (sense) sectio * cutting, slice, snippet * division, part, slice, piece * volume

    Antonyms

    * whole

    Coordinate terms

    * (aviation) waterline, buttock line

    Derived terms

    * cross section * dissection * bisection * quarter section * section road * section grid

    Related terms

    * dissect * secant * sect * sectarian * sector * segment * bisect * insect * intersect * prosect * resect * trisect

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To cut, divide or separate into pieces.
  • (British) To commit (a person, to a hospital, with or without their consent), as for mental health reasons.
  • * 1998 , Diana Gittins, Madness in its Place: Narratives of Severalls Hospital, 1913-1997 , Routledge, ISBN 978-0-415-18388-8, page 45:
    • Tribunals were set up as watchdogs in cases of compulsory detention (sectioning'). Informal patients, however, could be ' sectioned , and this was often a fear of patients once they were in hospital.
  • * Lucy Johnstone, Users and Abusers of Psychiatry: A Critical Look at Psychiatric Practice , Second Edition, Routledge (2000), ISBN 978-0-415-21155-0, page xiv:
    • The doctor then sectioned her, making her an involuntary patient, and had her moved to a secure ward.
  • * 2006 , Mairi Colme, A Divine Dance of Madness , Chipmunkapublishing, ISBN 978-1-84747-023-2, page 5:
    • After explaining that for 7 years, from ’88 to ’95, I was permanently sectioned under the Mental Health act, robbed of my freedom, my integrity, my rights, I wrote at the time;- ¶

    External links

    * * *

    Anagrams

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