compartment

Etymology

It is borrowed from Middle French compartiment (“part partitioned off”),^[2][3][4][5] from Italian compartimento,^[2][3][6][4] from compartire (“to divide, share”),^[2][6][7] from Late Latin compartior (“to divide, share”),^[2][8][5][9] formed from Latin com-, here probably intensive,^[3][6] and partior (“to share, apportion”),^[2][9][6] from pars (“part”),^[2][9][3] which Etymonline traces to Proto-Indo-European *pere- (“to grant, allot”).^[3] Skeat quotes Cotgrave's French gloss "a partition".^[10] The suffix corresponds to -ment.^[2][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

In architecture and art, a division or separate part of a design, such as a panel: 1564, in William Bullein's Dialogue against the Fever Pestilence.^[5][2][4]

Semantic evolution

The word came in as a term of art and design, and the French form compartiment was long kept in artistic senses;^[5] the Shorter Oxford also records copartment.^[11] Johnson (1755) still defined it as "division; separate part of a design".^[12] Other early uses were in heraldry, for a division of a shield (1590), in horticulture (1610–1814), and for a division of troops (1590).^[5] The modern sense of a space partitioned off appears late: of a cavity in an animal or plant from 1772, of a section of a railway carriage from 1862, and of a watertight section of a ship from 1866.^[5] The general sense of a separate section of anything is from 1791,^[5] and the figurative use for a section of the mind or of a body of knowledge is recorded by Merriam-Webster and Collins.^[4][9] The verb, to divide into compartments, dates from 1930.^[5]

Timeline

• 1564 – a division or separate part of a design.^[5][2][4]
• 1590 – in heraldry, a division of a shield.^[5]
• 1610 – in horticulture (obsolete by 1814).^[5]
• 1772 – a chamber in the body of an animal or plant.^[5]
• 1791 – a separate section of anything.^[5]
• 1862 – a section of a railway carriage.^[5]
• 1866 – a watertight section of a ship.^[5]
• 1930 – the verb, to divide into compartments.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. One of the separate sections into which an enclosed space is divided by partitions, such as a part of a railway carriage or a watertight section of a ship.^[9][4][5]
2. A small space or container for keeping things, such as a locker: a compartment for spare change.^[9][4]
3. A separate part or section of something abstract, such as the mind or a body of knowledge.^[9][4]
4. (architecture, art) A division of a surface or design, such as a panel in a ceiling.^[4][5]

Verb

1. To divide into compartments or separate units.^[4][5]

Word family

• compartmental
• compartmentation
• glove compartment

Related words

• compart
• part
• apartment

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c d e f g Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
10. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.