Zone sb.

Also 6–7 zoane. [ad. L. zōna, a. Gr. ζώνη girdle (ζωννύναι to gird). Cf. F. zone (from 12th c.), It., Sp., Pg. zona.]

  1.  Geog., etc. Each of the five ‘belts’ or encircling regions, distinguished by differences of climate, into which the surface of the earth (and, in ancient cosmography, the celestial sphere) is divided by the tropics (of Cancer and Capricorn) and the polar (arctic and antarctic) circles; viz. the torrid († burning, † burnt, † hot) zone between the tropics, the (north and south) temperate zones extending from the tropics to the polar circles, and the frigid († frozen, † cold) zones (arctic and antarctic) within the polar circles.

  The arctic and antarctic zones are strictly not ‘belts’ but circular ‘caps’ with the poles in the center.

a. 1500.  Hist. K. Boccus & Sydracke (? 1510), U iv. For thre zones [Laud MS. thre wonynges] shal he fynde Where no man may lyue in one kynde One is hote and colde are two.

1551.  Recorde, Cast. Knowl. (1556), 64. The olde Cosmographers … called all that space betweene the twoo Tropykes, the Burnynge Zone…. And of eche syde of it, they noted twoo Zones,… whiche they called the Frosen zones,… and betweene those Frosen zones, & the Burning zone, they appointed two Temperat zones.

1555.  Eden, Decades (Arb.), 298. The could zone or clime was condemned to perpetuall snowe.

1594.  Blundevil, Exerc., Mercator (1597), 203. The hotte Zone is that which lyeth betwixt the two Tropiques.

1602.  Shaks., Ham., V. i. 304. Till our ground Sindging his pate against the burning Zone, Make Ossa like a wart.

1652–62.  Heylin, Cosmogr., Introd. (1674), 19/2. The parts next the Torrid Zone are the hotter, and the parts next the Frigid Zone are the colder.

1700.  Dryden, Ovid’s Met., I. 55. The Sun, with Rays directly darting down, Fires all beneath, and fries the middle Zone.

1774.  Goldsm., Nat. Hist. (1776), V. 38. The feathered inhabitants of the temperate zone are but little remarkable for the beauty of their plumage.

1869.  Rawlinson, Anc. Hist., 53. Africa belongs almost entirely to the torrid zone.

  b.  Any region extending around the earth and comprised between definite limits, e.g., between two parallels of latitude. Also Astron. applied to a similar region in the heavens or on the surface of a planet or the sun.

1559.  W. Cunningham, Cosmogr. Glasse, 64. Do you not in this Figure call euery portion betwixt two paralleles: a zone?… Yes verely.

1578.  T. Twyne, trans. Daneau’s Workm. World, 61. Those fiue quarters and zones, which the Astronomers doe describe in heauen, and vppon the earth.

1692.  [see 3 b].

1860.  Maury, Phys. Geog. (Low), iv. § 205. We have, extending entirely around the earth, two zones of perpetual winds. Ibid., § 355. On the north side of this calm zone of Cancer.

1890.  C. A. Young, Elem. Astron., § 190. The spots are confined mostly to two zones of the sun’s surface between 5° and 40° of north and south latitude.

  2.  a. More or less vaguely: A region or tract of the world, esp. in relation to its climate; also fig.

1599.  Sir J. Davies, Nosce Teipsum, 5. We that acquaint our selues with euery Zoane, And passe both Tropikes, and behold the Poles.

a. 1628.  F. Grevil, Sidney, iv. (1907), 39. Her nature hard to imitate, and diversly worshipped, according to Zones, complexions, or education.

1667.  Milton, P. L., II. 397. We may … in some milde Zone Dwell not unvisited of Heav’ns fair Light Secure.

1772.  Monthly Rev., XLII. 190/2. ’Midst Lapland’s live-long shows, Or India’s burning zone.

1856.  Vaughan, Mystics, VI. vi. It has been theirs … to encounter the perilous fervours of that zone where never cooling cloud appears to veil insufferable radiance.

1870.  O’Shaughnessy, Epic of Women, Seraphitus, i. Some Spirit from a zone Or light, and ecstasy, and psalm.

  b.  A definite region or area of the earth, or of any place or space, distinguished from adjacent regions by some special quality or condition (indicated by a defining word or phrase); also fig.

  Often in technical use; see also 4 b, 5, 6, 7.

1822.  Mantell, Foss. S. Downs, 298. This occurrence of the more ancient deposits, within a zone of chalk hills.

1835.  Thirlwall, Greece, I. i. 29. Greece lies in a volcanic zone, which extends from the Caspian … to the Azores.

1837.  Brewster, Magnet., 222. The zone of easterly diurnal variations.

1849.  Paton, Highl. Adriatic, II. xix. 253. The wide-scattered city, with its zone of the glacis, is the foreground of the view.

1852.  E. Yates, Elem. Strat., 9. Every theatre of war is supposed to be divided into three Zones…. These are called Zones of Operation, and are distinguished as the Right, Left, and Central.

1873.  Daily News, 2 Aug., 3/5. That all extensions should be performed before entering within the fire zone.

1876.  Voyle & Stevenson, Milit. Dict., s.v. The zone of defence signifies a belt of ground in front of the general contour of the works within effective range of the artillery on the ramparts…. Zone of fire, a term synonymous with range or trajectory.

1881.  Raymond, Mining Gloss., s.v. In a shaft-furnace, the different portions (horizontal sections) are called zones, and characterized according to the reactions which take place in them, as the zone of fusion.

1883.  Gresley, Gloss. Coal M., Zone, in coal-mining phraseology, this word signifies a certain series of coal seams, with their accompanying shales, &c.

1902.  Times, 24 Nov., 5/2. Beyond the rain zone dead scrub and lifeless trees alone meet the eye.

  3.  A girdle or belt, as a part of dress. (Chiefly poetic.) Hence, any encircling band.

1608.  B. Jonson, Masques, Beauty, Wks. (1616), 906. Germinatio. In greene; with a Zone of gold about her Wast.

1635.  Quarles, Embl., V. viii. 40. Shall these course hands untie The sacred Zone of thy Virginitie?

1656.  Stanley, Hist. Philos., II. III. 13. This was the first place where he untyed his zone since he fled from Athens … So great was his fear.

1742.  Young, Nt. Th., V. 30. Wit calls the Graces the chaste zone to loose.

1803.  H. K. White, To My Lyre, vii.

1839.  E. D. Clarke’s Trav. Russia, 83/1. It was a zone for the leg, or bracelet for the arm, of the purest massive gold.

1869.  Lecky, Europ. Mor., II. v. 338. To the fabled zone of beauty the Christian saints opposed their zones of chastity.

1883.  Hardy, in Longman’s Mag., July, 258. The carters with a zone of whipcord round their hats.

  b.  A money-belt or purse.

1692.  Washington, trans. Milton’s Def. People, ix. 212. How many Zones you observed in that Golden and Silken Heaven of the King’s, I know not; but I know you got one Zone (a Purse) well tempered with a Hundred Golden Stars by your Astronomy.

1818.  Scott, Hrt. Midl., viii. The zone of the ex-trooper, to use Horace’s phrase, was weighty enough to purchase a cottage.

  c.  Astron. The girdle of Orion.

1599.  T. Hill, Schoole of Skil, 92. The constellation named the Zone or gyrdle of Orion.

  4.  Something that encircles like a girdle; a circumscribing or inclosing line, band, or ring.

1591.  Sylvester, Du Bartas, I. vi. 71. Round about him he so closely cleaves With’s wrything body; that his Enemy … Hastes to some Tree, or to some Rock, whereon To rush and rub-off his detested zone.

1620.  T. Peyton, Glasse of Time, I. 50. With twelue braue gates the curious eye to fill, The sacred luster as the glistring Zoane, And euery gate fram’d of a seuerall stone.

1784.  Cowper, Task, IV. 257. The moon … set With modest grandeur in thy [sc. Evening’s] purple zone.

1840.  Civil Eng. & Arch. Jrnl., III. 144/1. Below the entablature is a band or zone, formed of large stones and bricks placed alternately.

1856.  W. Clark, Van der Hoeven’s Zool., I. 93. Tentacles disposed in a zone around the mouth.

1860.  Tyndall, Glac., I. xxii. 154. A tendency to form circular zones round the sun.

1895.  Bridges, Ode to Music, IV. i.

  b.  A band or stripe of color, or of light or shade, extending around something, or (loosely) over any surface or area; often, any one of a number of concentric or alternate markings of this kind.

1752.  J. Hill, Hist. Anim., 131. The outer surface of the whole shell [of the Buccinum] … is of a pale brownish colour, elegantly variegated with a great number of yellow zones.

1805.  Shaw, Nat. Misc., XVI. pl. 657. Long-tailed green Parrot, with … the collar on the nape and abdominal zone yellow.

1816.  R. Jameson, Syst. Min. (ed. 2), II. 146. All such white marbles as are marked with green-coloured zones, caused by talc or chlorite.

1815.  J. Smith, Panorama Sci. & Art, I. 556. When Jupiter is viewed through a good telescope, we perceive a number of zones or belts, of a darker colour than the rest of his disc.

1833.  Sir C. Bell, Hand (1834), 311. If we press upon the eye-ball with a key or the end of a pencil-case, zones of light are excited.

1891.  Farrar, Darkn. & Dawn, vi. The atrium glowed in zones of light.

  5.  Astron. A region or belt of the sky comprised between definite limits, e.g., between two parallels of declination.

1795.  Herschel, in Phil. Trans., LXXXV. 381. My examinations of the heavens in zones.

1829.  Chapters Phys. Sci., 413. That broad zone called the milky-way.

1890.  Agnes M. Clerke, Syst. Stars, xxiv. 377. The general plan of nebular distribution is into vast assemblages, one on either side of the galactic zone.

  6.  Anat., Zool., and Bot. A growth or structure surrounding or encircling some part in the form of a ring or cylinder; also, a region or area extending around or over some part and distinguished by some special character or condition.

  With various defining words applied spec. to particular structures or regions. CILIARY zone, MOTOR zone: see these words. Zone of Zinn: see ZONULE.

1811.  C. Bell, Anat. Hum. Body (ed. 3), III. 468. These tubercles are … surrounded by a zone or disk, of a brownish red colour, the areola.

1849.  A. H. Hassall, Microsc. Anat. Hum. Body, I. 514. Ciliary processes.—These processes … are received into corresponding folds or plaitings of the hyaloid membrane, called the secondary ciliary processes, and which taken altogether form a circle around the crystalline lens named after their discoverer the Zone of Zinn.

1882.  Wilder & Gage, Anat. Technol., § 1421. The cornea … is … intermediate in thickness between that of the white zone and the rest of the sclerotic.

1884.  Bower & Scott, De Bary’s Phaner., 7. The periblem, which is a zone of tissue lying between the plerome and dermatogen.

1913.  Dorland, Med. Dict., s.v. Abdominal z[one]s, the three zones into which the surface of the abdomen is divided by the subcostal and intertubercular lines…. Pellucid z., the zona pellucida.

  7.  Geol. and Physical Geog. A region, or each of a series of regions, comprised between definite limits of any kind, e.g., of depth or height, and distinguished by special characters, esp. by characteristic fossils or forms of animal and plant life.

1829.  Ure, New Syst. Geol., 150. In the north [of France], it [sc. limestone] forms a portion of the great transition zone, which stretches from Flanders into the Hartz.

1839.  Murchison, Silur. Syst., I. ii. 17. The presence of this zone of clay … is marked by the outburst of water.

1851.  Amer. Jrnl. Sci., Ser. II. XI. 263. This cretaceous zone of the shore of the Cantabrian sea.

1882.  Geikie, Text-bk. Geol., VI. 635. A bed, or limited number of beds, characterized by one or more distinctive fossils, is termed a zone or horizon.

  8.  a. Math. A part of the surface of a sphere contained between two parallel planes, or of the surface of any solid of revolution contained between two planes perpendicular to the axis. b. Cryst. A series of faces of a crystal extending around it and having their lines of intersection parallel.

1795.  Hutton, Math. Dict., II. 477/2. The curve surface of any segment or zone of a Sphere, is also equal to the curve surface of a cylinder of the same height with that portion, and of the same diameter with the Sphere.

1867.  Thomson & Tait, Nat. Phil., § 781. I. 621. These circles … are … all in parallel planes … and cut the spherical surface into zones.

1868.  Dana, Min. (ed. 5), Introd. p. xxvi. The planes [of a crystalline form] may thus be viewed as lying in vertical zones, a different zone for every ratio of the lateral axes.

1878.  Gurney, Crystallogr., 21. These four vertical faces constitute what is called a zone (or girdle) of the form.

1895.  Palmer, trans. Nernst’s Theor. Chem., 67. The ‘law of zones,’… viz. all planes which can occur on a crystal are related to each other in zones; or, in other words, from any four planes, no three of which lie in one zone, all possible crystal planes can be derived by means of zones.

  9.  attrib. and Comb. a. attrib., chiefly in technical senses: e.g., in sense 2 b, esp. in reference to ‘zones’ or regions into which a district or country is divided for purposes of railway or other traveling, etc., as zone center, fare, system, tariff; in sense 5, as zone-clock, -piece, -reticle; in sense 8 b, as zone-axis, -circle, -plane; also zone-plate, a plate of glass marked out into concentric zones or rings alternately transparent and opaque, used like a lens to bring light to a focus. b. Comb. (objective, instrumental, parasynthetic, etc.), as zone-confounding, -like, -tailed adjs.

1878.  Gurney, Crystallogr., 22. The zone, the *zone axis, and the zone plane are all denoted by the same symbol, namely (U V W). Ibid., 32. The poles of all the faces in the same zone will lie in the same *zone circle.

1795.  Herschel, in Phil. Trans., LXXXV. 398. It would not only be troublesome to the workman, but often bring on mistakes, were he to count the turns of the handle, which perhaps for hours together he is moving: a *zone-clock, therefore, has been contrived to release him from that care…. It strikes a bell … when the telescope is come to one of the limits of the zone.

1890.  Punch, 28 June, p. iv. The yellow pod-flowers and the waving palms, the vermeil apples and the primrosed banks, of Camoens’ somewhat *zone-confounding vision.

1903.  Daily Chron., 18 Dec., 6/3. They proposed to fix *zone fares, and they treated Hammersmith as what they called the zone centre.

1598.  Marston, Sco. Villanie, I. i. When chast Dictinna, breakes the *Zonelike twist.

1795.  Herschel, in Phil. Trans., LXXXV. 385. A *zone-piece, to point out the required limits of the intended zones.

1878.  Gurney, Crystallogr., 22. The plane to which they [sc. the edges of the crystal] are all perpendicular is called the *zone plane.

1876.  G. F. Chambers, Astron. (ed. 3), 632. Observers … will find a *‘zone reticle’ of great service.

1903.  Daily Chron., 21 Nov., 7/2. Hungary has introduced a *zone system on her railways, which has made travelling on them the cheapest in the world.

1809.  Shaw, Gen. Zool., VII. 62. *Zone-tailed Eagle.

1891.  Econ. Jrnl., I. 507. A system of *zone tariffs.

1902.  Encycl. Brit., XXXII. 153/2. A zone-tariff system … whereby the country is mapped out into zones, and the traveller pays according to the number of these he passes through.