sect n
1. a subdivision of a larger religious group [syn: religious sect, religious order]
2. a dissenting clique [syn: faction]

Sect \Sect\, n. [L. secare, sectum, to cut.] A cutting; a scion. [Obs.] --Shak.

Sect \Sect\, n. [F. secte, L. sects, fr. sequi to follew; often confused with L. secare, sectum, to cut. See Sue to follow, and cf. Sept, Suit, n.] Those following a particular leader or authority, or attached to a certain opinion; a company or set having a common belief or allegiance distinct from others; in religion, the believers in a particular creed, or upholders of a particular practice; especially, in modern times, a party dissenting from an established church; a denomination; in philosophy, the disciples of a particular master; a school; in society and the state, an order, rank, class, or party. He beareth the sign of poverty, And in that sect our Savior saved all mankind. --Piers Plowman. As of the sect of which that he was born, He kept his lay, to which that he was sworn. --Chaucer. The cursed sect of that detestable and false prophet Mohammed. --Fabyan. As concerning this sect [Christians], we know that everywhere it is spoken against. --Acts xxviii. 22.

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A sect is a group with distinctive religious, political or philosophical beliefs. Although in past it was mostly used to refer to religious groups, it has since expanded and in modern culture can refer to any organization that breaks away from a larger one to follow a different set of rules and principles. The term is occasionally used in a malicious way to suggest the broken-off group follows a more negative path than the original. The historical usage of the term sect in Christendom has had pejorative connotations, referring to a group or movement with heretical beliefs or practices that deviate from those of groups considered orthodox.

A sect as used in an Indian context refers to an organized tradition.

The word sect comes from the Latin noun secta (a feminine form of a variant past participle of the verb sequi, to follow Note that speakers of some other languages use the same word for both the meaning sect and the meaning cult, for example in Italian: setta.

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