Zone (?), n. [F. zone, L. zona, Gr. ; akin to to gird, Lith. jsta to gird, Zend yah.]
1.
A girdle; a cincture.
[Poetic]
An embroidered zone surrounds her waist.
Dryden.
Loose were her tresses seen, her zone unbound.
Collins.
2. Geog.
One of the five great divisions of the earth, with respect to latitude and temperature.
⇒ The zones are five: the torrid zone, extending from tropic to tropic 46° 56&min;, or 23° 28&min; on each side of the equator; two temperate or variable zones, situated between the tropics and the polar circles; and two frigid zones, situated between the polar circles and the poles.
Commerce . . . defies every wind, outrides every tempest, and invades.
Bancroft.
3. Math.
The portion of the surface of a sphere included between two parallel planes; the portion of a surface of revolution included between two planes perpendicular to the axis.
Davies & Peck (Math. Dict.)
4. Nat. Hist.]
(a)
A band or stripe extending around a body.
(b)
A band or area of growth encircling anything; as, a zone of evergreens on a mountain; the zone of animal or vegetable life in the ocean around an island or a continent; the Alpine zone, that part of mountains which is above the limit of tree growth.
5. Crystallog.
A series of planes having mutually parallel intersections.
6.
Circuit; circumference.
[R.]
Milton.
7.
(Biogeography)
An area or part of a region characterized
by uniform or similar animal and plant life; a life zone; as, Littoral
zone, Austral zone, etc. The zones, or
life zones, commonly recognized for North America are Arctic,
Hudsonian, Canadian, Transition, Upper Austral, Lower Austral, and
Tropical.
8.
(Cryst.)
A series of faces whose
intersection lines with each other are parallel.
9.
(Railroad Econ.)
(a)
The aggregate of stations, in whatsoever direction or on
whatsoever line of railroad, situated between certain maximum and
minimum limits from a point at which a shipment of traffic
originates.
(b)
Any circular or ring-shaped
area within which the street-car companies make no differences of
fare.
10.
In the United States parcel-post system,
any of the areas about any point of shipment for which but one rate of
postage is charged for a parcel post shipment from that point. The
rate increases from within outwards. The first zone includes the unit
of area "(a quadrangle 30 minutes square)" in which the place of
shipment is situated and the 8 contiguous units; the outer limits of
the second to the seventh zones, respectively, are approximately 150,
300, 600, 1000, 1400, and 1800 miles from the point of shipment; the
eighth zone includes all units of area outside the seventh
zone.
Abyssal zone. Phys. Geog. See under Abyssal. -- Zone axis Crystallog., a straight line passing through the center of a crystal, to which all the planes of a given zone are parallel.
© Webster 1913.
Zone, v. t.
To girdle; to encircle.
[R.]
Keats.
© Webster 1913.