Sector: A Piece Cut Out of the Whole
A sector is a distinct part of something larger. The Latin root means to cut, and it also produced section, segment, dissect and insect.
A sector is a distinct part of a larger whole — an economy, a city, a circle. It comes from Latin *secare*, to cut, which also produced *section*, *segment*, *dissect* and, less obviously, *insect*: an insect is an animal that looks cut into parts. Geometry keeps the original picture, a slice cut from a circle by two radii.
- A part of an economy. *The public sector.*
- A slice of a circle. *The area of a sector.*
- A zone. *The northern sector of the city.*
- On a disk — a division of a track. *A bad sector.*
Word forms
| Form | Word | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Noun | sector | The energy sector. |
| Plural | sectors | Key sectors. |
| Adjective | sectoral | Sectoral policy. |
| Related | section | A cross section. |
| Related | segment | A market segment. |
- The manufacturing sector shed jobs.Economics.
- Shade the sector between the two radii.Geometry.
- The drive reported bad sectors.Computing.
The secare family
- Section — a cut piece
- Segment — a part cut off
- Dissect — cut apart to examine
- Insect — cut into, from the notched body
- Bisect — cut into two
Late Latin *sector*, a cutter, from *secare*, to cut. English first used it in geometry in the 1560s; the economic sense is twentieth-century.
Is insect from the same root as sector?
Yes. Insectum means cut into, describing the segmented body of an insect.
What is the difference between sector and segment?
In business they overlap, but a sector is usually an area of activity while a segment is a division of a market or audience.