Zone , n.
1. (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.
2. (Cryst.)
A series of faces whose intersection lines with each other are parallel.
3. (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.
4. 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.
Zone , v. t. To girdle; to encircle. [R.]
Keats.
Zone (zōn),
n. [F. zone, L. zona, Gr. zw`nh; akin to zwnny`nai to gird, Lith.
jůsta a girdle, jůsti to gird, Zend
yāh.]
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.
&fist; 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.
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.
Hear it pronounced