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There are newspapers that are made up of several "mini-newspapers" (or "physical volumes"), for example, the "main news" "mini-newspaper", the "classifieds" "mini-newspaper", and the "sports" "mini-newspaper". These "mini-newspapers"/"physical volumes" are placed one on top of another (the "main news" is always the top "mini-newspaper"), and sold to the reader.

What is the correct term for a "mini-newspaper"/"physical volume"?

I thought about "newspaper section", but each "mini-newspaper" could consist of sections too (e.g. the "main news" "mini-newspaper" could consist of sections named "domestic news" and "international news"). "newspaper section" also doesn't capture the fact that the divisions are physical.

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    You will probably find that different newspapers have their own convention for naming the portions.
    – Michael Harvey
    Commented May 1, 2019 at 16:22

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I believe it is in the same in the UK, but in any case in the US these can be referred to as "page" or "pages", depending on the context. Historically, a child might nave said to his father, reading the morning paper over breakfast:

Can you turn to the sports page, Dad? I want to see who won last night's match.

The term still applies to the online version of the newspaper:

Hey, go click over to the sports page, would you? I want to see who won last night's match.

In many larger newspapers there is the front page, the financial pages, the local pages, the sports pages, the editorial pages, the entertainment pages, and the classified ads, as well as various others. Some newspapers have specialized pages on different days of the week, like food pages (with recipes and restaurant reviews) or society pages (with news about the local rich and famous).

Note that these are called different "sections" of the newspaper as well, but you asked for an idiomatic alternative.

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  • I don't think this is accurate because in my newspaper, the sports pages are inside another "volume". Historically, a child would have asked his father "Can you pass me the sports "mini-newspaper"/"volume", Dad?". Why do you have to wait for your turn when the "mini-newspapers" can just be separated?
    – Flux
    Commented May 1, 2019 at 16:28
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    Flux, you are imagining a level of precision in everyday speech which is unrealistic.
    – Michael Harvey
    Commented May 1, 2019 at 16:32
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    The word section is more commonly used to indicate the divisions being discussed.
    – Jack Bosma
    Commented May 1, 2019 at 16:33
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    @Flux Different papers are organized differently, but the sections are referred to in the same way regardless. All of my local larger newspapers are separated this way, so, for example, so you could hand over the sports page while still reading the main page. As children my brothers and I would always open the Sunday paper and pull out the comics page, which was separate from the rest of the paper.
    – Andrew
    Commented May 1, 2019 at 16:59
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    +1 In casual speech, I've always heard people refer to them as the X page. They are actually sections, but that's not as idiomatic.
    – Jason Bassford
    Commented May 1, 2019 at 17:00
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Section is, in my experience, the conventional, everyday term for the different physical parts of a newspaper, excluding the magazine, advertising inserts, and other components that are not printed at the same size. Page or pages as Andrew suggests are also in use, as well as feature, but I think of these as parts of the newspaper within a section, rather than as discrete components of it. The science pages might be two pages with a "Science" heading within the main news section, the religion page might be a single article in the lifestyle section.

What is idiomatic will likely depend on what kind of newspapers you are accustomed to reading. It is mostly broadsheets that are traditionally split up into different areas of focus, whereas the division is less useful and less common in tabloid-sized publications, although the latter may have a central section that can be pulled out. Growing up in the 1980s mostly reading the Los Angeles Times and the Orange County Register, I would ask for the business section or opinion section; on weekdays, when there was no separate opinion section, I would ask for the news section or front page section because the editorials were printed at the back of it, where I could find the opinion pages.

Macmillan's first definition states

1a. a part of a newspaper, book, or other piece of writing that may be considered separately

The story was reported on the front page of the business section.

The sports section is probably the most universal, and indeed has its own OED sub-entry with three examples:

  • 1912 Oakland (Calif.) Tribune 15 June 1/1 A well-edited sports section, contributed to by experts.
  • 1940 G. Marx Let. in G. Marx et al. Groucho Lett. (1967) 46 I picked up the paper Tuesday morning, nervously turned to the sports section.
  • 2004 Guardian 12 Jan. (Media section) 8/1 We expect not just a newspaper, but also a weekend section, an arts section, a blow-by-blow sports section, [etc.].

For examples of other kinds of sections, you might consult guides from the Boston Globe and The Washington Post.

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Sometimes the additional material takes the form of supplements - these might be a magazine, TV listings, art reviews, etc, each inserted in the newspaper as a kind of mini newspaper (or magazine). (Source here: https://www.inpublishing.co.uk/articles/supplements-1682 )

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  • What if the "mini-newspaper"/"physical volume" is an integral part of the newspaper? For example, the "main news" "volume" and "finance" "volume" cannot be considered "supplements".
    – Flux
    Commented May 1, 2019 at 16:55
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The Oxford Dictionaries has

pull-out
NOUN

1A pull-out section of a magazine or newspaper.
don't miss Monday's 8-page Games pull-out.

The question and this definition mention the word

section
NOUN

1.1 A relatively distinct part of a book, newspaper, statute, or other document.
the New York Times business section

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