segmentation

Etymology

It is formed from English segment + -ation.^{[2][3][4][5][6]} The verb comes from the noun,^[5][2] which is from Latin segmentum (“a strip or piece cut off”), from secō (“to cut”), with -c- changed to -g- before -m-,^[5][2] from Proto-Indo-European *sek- (“to cut”).^[5] The OED records the noun segmentation (1851) a few years before the verb (1859).^[2][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Blount's glossary (1656) gives an earlier segmentation, "a cutting into small pieces", which is otherwise unrecorded and now obsolete.^[2][5] The modern word appears in 1851, in W. B. Carpenter's Manual of Physiology, for division into segments, especially the division of an egg cell in an embryo.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

The word began as a term of embryology, for the way a single cell divides into many,^[2][3][5] and in zoology it was also used for the division of a body into a series of similar segments.^[4][7] The Historical Thesaurus files the 1851 sense both under embryo development and under the general division of a whole into parts.^[8] In physiology it names a ring-shaped contraction of smooth muscle, as in the intestine.^[3] Marketing took it up in 1956 for dividing a market into groups of customers.^[2][8]

Timeline

• 1656 – a cutting into small pieces, in Blount (now obsolete).^[2][5]
• 1851 – division into segments, especially the division of an egg cell in an embryo.^[2][3][5]
• 1956 – marketing, the division of a market into segments.^[2][8]

Meanings

Noun

1. The act or process of dividing something into segments, or the state of being divided: the segmentation of the text into sentences.^[7][3][4]
2. (embryology) The division of a fertilized egg into many cells; cleavage.^[7][3][2]
3. (zoology) Division of the body into a series of similar parts; metamerism.^[7][4]
4. (physiology) A ring-shaped contraction of smooth muscle, as in the intestine.^[3]
5. (marketing) The division of a market into groups of customers with shared needs.^[2]

Word family

• nonsegmentation

Related words

• segment
• section
• sector
• bisect
• dissect

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
8. ^ a b c Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)