district

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   An administrative division of an area.

   ‘I understand that the district was considered a sort of sanctuary,’ the Chief was saying. ‘An Alsatia like the ancient one behind the Strand, or the Saffron Hill before the First World War.[…]’

2. 2
   noun

   An area or region marked by some distinguishing feature.

   the Lake District in Cumbria

3. 3
   noun

   An administrative division of a county without the status of a borough.

   South Oxfordshire District Council

4. 4
   adj

   rigorous; stringent; harsh

   punishing with the rod of district severity

5. 5
   name

   The District Line of the London Underground, originally known as the District Railway.

   The District seems complacently salubrious. It is green on the Tube map, an inoffensive colour. It has not one but two bridge crossings of the Thames, which seems greedy when you think that no other [underground] line has even one.

6. 6
   verb

   regulate housing in

7. 7
   noun

   a region marked off for administrative or other purposes

8. 8
   noun

   A specific, usually named area of the coalface where particular seams are worked.

Etymology

From French district, from Medieval Latin districtus (“a district within which the lord may distrain, also jurisdiction”), from Latin districtus, past participle of distringere (“to draw asunder, compel, distrain”), from dis- (“apart”) + stringere (“to draw tight, strain”). Doublet of Detroit.