sort

A general type.

Noun

  1. A general type.
    • I stumbled along through the young pines and huckleberry bushes. Pretty soon I struck into a sort of path that, I cal'lated, might lead to the road I was hunting for. It twisted and turned, and, the first thing I knew,...
    • “[…] the awfully hearty sort of Christmas cards that people do send to other people that they don't know at all well. You know. The kind that have mottoes like Here's rattling good luck and roaring good cheer, / With...
    • The face which emerged was not reassuring.[…]. He was not a mongol but there was a deficiency of a sort there, and it was not made more pretty by a latter-day hair cut which involved eccentrically long elf-locks and...
  2. Manner, way; form of being or acting.
    • Soon as the term of those six years shall cease, Ye then shall hither back return again, The marriage to accomplish vow’d betwixt you twain. Which for my part, I covet to perform, In sort as through the world I did...
    • Such is that argument whereby they that wore on their heads garlands are charged as transgressors of nature’s law, and guilty of sacrilege against God the Lord of nature, inasmuch as flowers, in such sort worn can...
    • I’ll deceive you in another sort - ca 1590, William Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus:
  3. Condition above the vulgar; rank.
    • “What think you, Captain Fluellen? is it fit this soldier keep his oath?” “He is a craven and a villain else, an’t please your majesty, in my conscience.” “It may be his enemy is a gentleman of great sort, quite from...
  4. A person evaluated in a certain way.
    • good sort, bad sort
    • There is no problem with this and he seems to be a decent sort with very good reflexes. I will have Felix replaced with him when we get back to Washington because he is more acceptable. - 1999 October 5, Heinrich...
    • Amo, he is the prince. And he is a good sort. You, My Husband, should be among his circle - 2014, Mykel D. Myles, The Long Night Of The Demon, →ISBN:
  5. Group, company.
    • a sort of shepherds suing of the Chace - 1595, Edmund Spenser, The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser:
    • a sort of doves were housed too near their hall - 1687, John Dryden, The Hind and the Panther:
    • What good got you by wearing out your feet, To run on scurvy errands to the poor, and to bear mony to a sort of rogues And lousy prisoners? - 1622, Philip Massinger, The Virgin Martyr:
  6. A good-looking woman.
  7. An act of sorting.
    • I had a sort of my cupboard.
  8. An algorithm for sorting a list of items into a particular sequence.
    • Popular algorithms for sorts include quicksort and heapsort.
    • The fastest general algorithm we have considered that sorts keys in a stable manner is the list merge sort, but it does not use minimum storage - 2014, Donald E. Knuth, The Art of Computer Programming. Sorting and...
  9. A piece of metal type used to print one letter, character, or symbol in a particular size and style.
    • Green managed to recover a total of 151 sorts (the name for individual pieces of type) out of a possible 500,000. - 2024 May 5, Holly Black, “Remnants of a Legendary Typeface Have Been Rescued From the River Thames”, in...
  10. A type.
  11. Fate, fortune, destiny.
    • For he is groſſe and like the maſſie earth, That mooues not vpwards, nor by princely deeds Doth meane to ſoare aboue the highest ſort. - c. 1587–1588 (date written), [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The...
  12. Anything used to determine the answer to a question by chance; lot.
    • No, make a lottery; And, by device, let blockish Ajax draw The sort to fight with Hector. - c. 1602, William Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida:

Origin

From Middle English sort, soort, sorte (cognate Dutch soort, German Sorte, Danish sort, Swedish sort), borrowed from Old French sorte (“class, kind”), from Latin sortem, accusative form of sors (“lot, fate, share, rank, category”).

Forms

sorts

Synonyms

genre genus kind type variety character individual person sort-out sort algorithm sorting algorithm

Hyponyms

bead sort binary tree sort blort sort bogosort bozo sort bubble sort bucket sort cocktail sort comb sort counting sort distribution sort drunk man sort gnome sort heapsort in-place sort insertion sort introsort introspective sort library sort mergesort merge sort monkey sort pigeonhole sort quicksort

Derived

allsorts bogo-sort heapsort introsort mergesort quicksort smoothsort timsort all sorts in sort out of sorts sorta sort of that's your sort copy sort cycle sort good sort middling sort missort picture sort sortal sort code topological sort

Verb

  1. To separate items into different categories according to certain criteria that determine their sorts.
    • Sort the letters in those bags into a separate pile for each language.
    • And seeing the Rays which differ in Refrangibility may be parted and sorted from one another, and that either by Refraction..., or by Reflexion..., and then the several sorts apart at equal Incidences suffer unequal...
    • "Is there a man among ye has the Gaelic? ... Is there a man among ye can speak English even? ... Is there a man among ye at all? Ye gang o' lasceevious auld de'ils, decked oot like weemin, in spite o' yer hairy long...

    Synonyms: categorize class classify group

  2. To arrange into some sequence, usually numerically, alphabetically or chronologically.
    • Sort those bells into a row in ascending sequence of pitch.

    Synonyms: order rank

  3. To conjoin; to put together in distribution; to class.
    • Shellfish have been, by some of the ancients, compared and sorted with insecta. - 1635, Francis Bacon, Sylva Sylvarum, Or, A Naturall Historie in Ten Centuries:
    • For when she sorts things present with things past And thereby things to come doth oft foresee; When she doth doubt at first, and chuse at last, These acts her owne, without her body bee. - 1599, John Davies, Nosce...
  4. To conform; to adapt; to accommodate.
    • I pray thee, sort thy heart to patience. - ca 1591, William Shakespeare, Henry VI part 2:
  5. To choose from a number; to select; to cull.
    • To send his mother to her father's house, that he may sort her out a worthy spouse - 1616, George Chapman, The Odysseys of Homer:
    • I'll sort some other time to visit you. - ca 1591, William Shakespeare, Henry VI part 1:
  6. To join or associate with others, especially with others of the same kind or species; to agree.
    • The illiberality of Parents in allowance towards their children is an harmefull error: makes them base; acquaints them with shifts, makes them sort with meane companie; and makes them surfet more, when they come to...
    • Nor do Metalls only sort and herd with Metalls in the Earth : and Minerals with Minerals : but both indifferently and in common together: Iron with Vitriol, with Alum, with Sulphur: Copper with Sulphur, with Vitriol,...
  7. To suit; to fit; to be in accord; to harmonize.
    • They are happie men, whose natures sort with their vocations, otherwise they may say Multum incola fuit anima mea; when they converse in those things they doe not affect. - 1612, Francis Bacon, Of Nature in Men:
    • I cannot tell ye precisely how they sorted; but they agreed sae right that Donald was invited to dance at the wedding in his Highland trews, and they said that there was never sae meikle siller clinked in his purse...
  8. To fix (a problem) or handle (a task).
    • ‘Does rewilding sort climate change? Yes!’: UK expert says nature can save planet and not harm farming [title] - 2024 February 25, Donna Ferguson, “‘Does rewilding sort climate change? Yes!’: UK expert says nature can...

    Synonyms: sort out

  9. To attack physically.
    • If he comes nosing around here again I'll sort him!

    Synonyms: sort out

  10. To geld.

Origin

From Middle English sorten, from Old French sortir (“to allot, sort”), from Latin sortīre (“draw lots, divide, choose”), from sors.

Forms

sorts sorting sorted no-table-tags glossary sort sortest sortedst sorteth -

Derived

alphasort archaeosortase besort cubesort immunosort missort pick-and-sort presort re-sort resort serosort Shellsort sortability sortable sortal sortase sortation sorted sorting sortkey sort oneself out sort out sort the wheat from the chaff sort through