1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Sect

SECT, a body of persons holding distinctive or separate doctrines or opinions, especially in matters of religion; thus there are various sects among the Jews, the Mahommedans, and the Buddhists, &c. In the Christian Church it has usually a hostile or deprecatory sense and is applied, like “sectary,” to all religious bodies outside the one to which the user of the term belongs.

The latter use has been influenced by the false etymology which makes the word mean “cut off" (Lat. secure, to cut). The derivation has been long a matter of dispute. The Latin secta was used in classical Latin first of a way, a trodden or beaten path; it seems to be derived from secare, to cut, cf. the phrase secare viam, to travel, take one's way, Gr. τέμνων ὁδόν. From the phrase sectam sequi, to follow in the footsteps of any one, the word came to mean a party, following, faction. Another transferred sense is a manner or mode of life, so hanc sectam rationem ue vitae . . . secuti sumus (Cic. Cael. 17, 40). It was also the regullar word for a school of philosophy and so translates αἴρεσις, lit. choice (αἰρεῖσθαι, to choose), from which is derived “heresy” (q.v.). The Vulgate (N.T.) translates αἴρεσις sometimes by secta, sometimes by haeresis. In Med. Lat., besides these uses we find secta meaning a suit at law, a suit of clothes, and a following or suite. These meanings point to the derivation of secta adopted by Skeat (Etym. Dict., 1910); which connects the word with sequi, to follow. Whichever derivation is accepted a “sect” does not mean a part “cut off” from the church.