| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000. |
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| sort |
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| PRONUNCIATION: |  sôrt |
| NOUN: | 1. A group of persons or things of the same general character; a kind. 2. Character or nature: books of all sorts. 3. One that exemplifies the characteristics of or serves a similar function to another: “A large dinner-party … made a sort of general introduction for her to the society of the neighbourhood” (George Eliot, Daniel Deronda 1876). 4. A person; an individual: The clerk is a decent sort. 5. A way of acting or behaving. 6. sorts Printing One of the characters in a font of type. 7. An act or instance of sorting: did a sort on the columns of data. | | TRANSITIVE VERB: | Inflected forms: sort·ed, sort·ing, sorts
1. To arrange according to class, kind, or size; classify. See synonyms at arrange. 2. To separate from others: sort out the wheat from the chaff. 3. To clarify by going over mentally: She tried to sort out her problems. | | IDIOMS: | after a sort In a haphazard or imperfect way: managed to paint the chair after a sort. of sorts (or a sort) 1. Of a mediocre or inferior kind: a constitutional government of a sort. 2. Of one kind or another: knew many folktales of sorts. out of sorts 1. Slightly ill. 2. Irritable; cross: The teacher is out of sorts this morning. sort of Informal Somewhat; rather: “Gambling and prostitution . . . have been prohibited, but only sort of” (George F. Will). | | ETYMOLOGY: | Middle English, from Old French, from Latin sors, sort-, lot. See ser-2 in Appendix I. | | OTHER FORMS: | sort a·ble —ADJECTIVE
sorter —NOUN
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| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
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