region

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A large, usually continuous segment of a surface or space; area.
2. n. A large, indefinite portion of the earth's surface.
3. n. A specified district or territory.
4. n. An area of interest or activity; a sphere.
5. n. Ecology A part of the earth characterized by distinctive animal or plant life.
6. n. An area of the body having natural or arbitrarily assigned boundaries: the abdominal region.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. Any considerable and connected part of a space or surface; specifically, a tract of land or sea of considerable but indefinite extent; a country; a district; in a broad sense, place without special reference to location or extent: as, the equatorial regions; the temperate regions; the polar regions; the upper regions of the atmosphere.
2. n. An administrative division of a city or territory; specifically, such a division of the city of Rome and of the territory about Rome, of which the number varied at different times; a district, quarter, or ward (modern rione). Under Servius Tnllius there were four regions in the city and twenty-six in the Roman territory.
3. n. Figuratively, the inhabitants of a region or district of country.
4. n. In anatomy, a place in or a part of the body in any way indicated: as, the abdominal regions.
5. n. Place; rank; station; dignity.
6. n. Specifically, the space from the earth's surface out to the orbit of the moon: properly called the elemental region.
7. n. In zoögeog., a large faunal area variously limited by different authors. Especially— A realm; one of several primary divisions of the earth's surface, characterized by its fauna: as, the Palearctic or the Nearctic region. The term acquired specific application to certain large principal areas from its use in this sense by P. L. Sclater in 1857. Sclator's regions, adopted with little modification by Günther and Wallace, were six in number: the Palearctic, Ethiopian, Oriental or Indian, Australian, Nearctic, and Neotropical. (See these words.) Baird added a seventh, the West Indian, now considered a division of the Neotropical. In 1874 Sclater, following Huxley, recognized as primary divisions
8. n. Of the thorax, same as inframammary region.
9. n. Synonyms Quarter, locality, clime, territory.
10. n. In the plan of excavations at Pompeii, one of the primary divisions introduced by Fiorelli about 1860. The arrangement is based on a misconception but has nevertheless been retained. Each region contains several blocks or insulæ.
11. n. In phytogeography: A mountain belt marked by peculiar floral types; an altitudinal zone. Thus used by Humboldt, who for the equatorial district of the Andes distinguished nine such regions. Schimper also prefers this term to zone in treating of mountain belts. He distinguishes, on purely œcological grounds, basal, montane, and alpine mountain regions.
12. n. A comprehensive territorial unit with sufficient uniformity of conditions to secure uniformity in vegetation. A region will include several formations and will itself be included in some larger unit, as a realm.
13. n. For a special use, see life zone.

Wiktionary

1. n. Any considerable and connected part of a space or surface; specifically, a tract of land or sea of considerable but indefinite extent; a country; a district; in a broad sense, a place without special reference to location or extent but viewed as an entity for geographical, social or cultural reasons.
2. n. An administrative subdivision of a city, a territory, a country or the European Union.
3. n. historical Such a division of the city of Rome and of the territory about Rome, of which the number varied at different times; a district, quarter, or ward.
4. n. figuratively The inhabitants of a region or district of a country.
5. n. anatomy A place in or a part of the body in any way indicated.
6. n. obsolete Place; rank; station; dignity.
7. n. obsolete The space from the earth's surface out to the orbit of the moon: properly called the elemental region.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. One of the grand districts or quarters into which any space or surface, as of the earth or the heavens, is conceived of as divided; hence, in general, a portion of space or territory of indefinite extent; country; province; district; tract.
2. n. Tract, part, or space, lying about and including anything; neighborhood; vicinity; sphere.
3. n. obsolete The upper air; the sky; the heavens.
4. n. The inhabitants of a district.
5. n. Obs. or R. Place; rank; station.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a part of an animal that has a special function or is supplied by a given artery or nerve
2. n. a large indefinite location on the surface of the Earth
3. n. the extended spatial location of something
4. n. the approximate amount of something (usually used prepositionally as in `in the region of')
5. n. a knowledge domain that you are interested in or are communicating about