sort

1. 1

   A general type.

   • 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 oiled black curls.
   • Swearing doesn't just mean what we now understand by "dirty words". It is entwined, in social and linguistic history, with the other sort of swearing: vows and oaths.
2. 2

   Manner, way; form of being or acting.archaic

   • I’ll deceive you in another sort
   • But to Adam in what sort Shall I appeer? shall I to him make known As yet my change, and give him to partake Full happiness with mee, or rather not, But keep the odds of Knowledge within my power Without copartner?
3. 3

   Condition above the vulgar; rank.obsolete

   • “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 the answer of his degre
4. 4

   A person evaluated in a certain way.informal

   • good sort, bad sort
5. 5

   Group, company.obsolete

   • a sort of shepherds suing of the Chace
   • a sort of doves were housed too near their hall
6. 6

   A good-looking woman.AustraliaUKinformal

7. 7

   An act of sorting.

   • I had a sort of my cupboard.
8. 8

   An algorithm for sorting a list of items into a particular sequence.

   • Popular algorithms for sorts include quicksort and heapsort.
9. 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.
10. 10

    A type.

syn. character · individual · person · type

1. 1

   To separate items into different categories according to certain criteria that determine their sorts.transitive

   • Sort the letters in those bags into a separate pile for each language.
2. 2

   To arrange into some sequence, usually numerically, alphabetically or chronologically.transitive

   • Sort those bells into a row in ascending sequence of pitch.
3. 3

   To conjoin; to put together in distribution; to class.transitive

   • Shellfish have been, by some of the ancients, compared and sorted with insecta.
   • 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.
4. 4

   To conform; to adapt; to accommodate.obsoletetransitive

   • I pray thee, sort thy heart to patience.
5. 5

   To choose from a number; to select; to cull.obsoletetransitive

   • To send his mother to her father's house, that he may sort her out a worthy spouse
   • I'll sort some other time to visit you.
6. 6

   To join or associate with others, especially with others of the same kind or species; to agree.intransitive

   • 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 plenty.
7. 7

   To suit; to fit; to be in accord; to harmonize.intransitive

   • 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.
   • 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 either before or since.
8. 8

   To fix (a problem) or handle (a task).UKcolloquialtransitive

   • ‘Does rewilding sort climate change? Yes!’: UK expert says nature can save planet and not harm farming [title]
9. 9

   To attack physically.UKcolloquialtransitive

   • If he comes nosing around here again I'll sort him!
10. 10

    To geld.transitive