sort
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: enpr: sôrt
ipa: /sɔːt/
enpr: sôrt
ipa: /soɹt/
enpr: sôrt
ipa: /soːt/
enpr: sôrt
ipa: /sɔɹt/
rhymes: -ɔː(ɹ)t
homophone: sought (non-rhotic)
Forms: form: sorts
Etymology: 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”).
Senses: examples: text: 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, made a sudden bend around a bunch of bayberry scrub and opened out into a big clear space like a lawn.
ref: 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:
text: “[…] 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 lashings of food and great hogsheads of beer.[…]”
ref: 1921, Ben Travers, chapter 1, in A Cuckoo in the Nest, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 1925, →OCLC:
text: 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.
ref: 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 17, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:
text: 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.
ref: 2013 June 14, Sam Leith, “Where the profound meets the profane”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 1, page 37:
glosses: A general type.
examples: text: 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 proclaim,
That whoso kill’d that monster (most deform)
And him in hardy battle overcame,
Should have mine only daughter to his Dame […]
ref: 1590, Edmund Spenser, “(please specify the book)”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
text: 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 neither be smelt nor seen well by those that wear them; and God made flowers sweet and beautiful, that being seen and smelt unto, they might so delight.
ref: 1845, Richard Hooker, Works of that Learned and Judicious Divine […] :
text: I’ll deceive you in another sort
ref: ca 1590, William Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus:
text: 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?
ref: 1667, John Milton, Paradise lost:
text: I acknowledge, with Segrais, that I have not succeeded in this attempt, according to my desire: yet I shall not be wholly without praise, if in some sort I may be allow’d to have copied the Clearness, the Purity, the Easiness and the Magnificence of his stile.
ref: 1697, John Dryden, The Works of John Dryden, Volume V: Poems, →ISBN:
text: Carried somehow, somewhither, for some reason, on these surging floods, were these travelers, of errand not wholly obvious to their fellows, yet of such sort as to call into query alike the nature of their errand and their own relations. It is easily earned repetition to state that Josephine St. Auban's was a presence not to be concealed.
ref: 1910, Emerson Hough, chapter II, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
text: With the might of that throw Goldry’s wrath departed from him and left him strengthless, in such sort that he reeled as he went from the wrastling ground.
ref: 1922, E[ric] R[ücker] Eddison, The Worm Ouroboros: A Romance, London: Jonathan Cape […], →OCLC, page 27:
glosses: Manner, way; form of being or acting.
examples: text: “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 degree.”
“Though he be as good a gentleman as the devil is, as Lucifer and Belzebub himself, it is necessary, look your grace, that he keep his vow and his oath.”
ref: c. 1599, William Shakespeare, Henry V:
glosses: Condition above the vulgar; rank.
examples: text: good sort, bad sort
text: 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.
ref: 1999 October 24, Heinrich Müller, Müller Journals: 1948-1950, The Washington years:
text: Amo, he is the prince. And he is a good sort. You, My Husband, should be among his circle
ref: 2014, Mykel D. Myles, The Long Night Of The Demon, →ISBN:
text: One doesn't need to be Einstein to realize he is a bad sort / My wife always said as much.
ref: 2014, Seema Jha, Charade978-1-4969-8816-4:
glosses: A person evaluated in a certain way.
examples: text: a sort of shepherds suing of the Chace
ref: 1595, Edmund Spenser, The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser:
text: a sort of doves were housed too near their hall
ref: 1687, John Dryden, The Hind and the Panther:
text: 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?
ref: 1622, Philip Massinger, The Virgin Martyr:
text: A boy, a child, and we a sort of us,
Vowed against his voyage, yet admit it thus!
ref: 1616, George Chapman, The Odysseys of Homer:
glosses: Group, company.
glosses: A good-looking woman.
examples: text: I had a sort of my cupboard.
glosses: An act of sorting.
examples: text: Popular algorithms for sorts include quicksort and heapsort.
text: 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
ref: 2014, Donald E. Knuth, The Art of Computer Programming. Sorting and Searching, →ISBN:
topics: computing
engineering
mathematics
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
sciences
glosses: An algorithm for sorting a list of items into a particular sequence.
examples: text: Green managed to recover a total of 151 sorts (the name for individual pieces of type) out of a possible 500,000.
ref: 2024 May 5, Holly Black, “Remnants of a Legendary Typeface Have Been Rescued From the River Thames”, in artnet:
topics: media
publishing
typography
glosses: A piece of metal type used to print one letter, character, or symbol in a particular size and style.
topics: mathematics
sciences
glosses: A type.
examples: text: 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.
ref: c. 1587–1588 (date written), [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire; London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act II, scene vii:
glosses: Fate, fortune, destiny.
examples: text: No, make a lottery;
And, by device, let blockish Ajax draw
The sort to fight with Hector.
ref: c. 1602, William Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida:
glosses: Anything used to determine the answer to a question by chance; lot.
glosses: A full set of anything, such as a pair of shoes or a suit of clothes.
Synonyms: sense: type
word: genre
sense: type
word: genus
sense: type
word: kind
sense: type
word: type
sense: type
word: variety
word: character
word: individual
word: person
word: type
sense: act of sorting
word: sort-out
sense: in computing
word: sort algorithm
sense: in computing
word: sorting algorithm
topics: typography
publishing
media
word: glyph
topics: typography
publishing
media
word: type
Hyponyms: sense: (computing) Algorithm for sorting a list of items
word: bead sort
sense: (computing) Algorithm for sorting a list of items
word: binary tree sort
sense: (computing) Algorithm for sorting a list of items
word: blort sort
sense: (computing) Algorithm for sorting a list of items
word: bogo-sort
sense: (computing) Algorithm for sorting a list of items
word: bozo sort
sense: (computing) Algorithm for sorting a list of items
word: bubble sort
sense: (computing) Algorithm for sorting a list of items
word: bucket sort
sense: (computing) Algorithm for sorting a list of items
word: cocktail sort
sense: (computing) Algorithm for sorting a list of items
word: comb sort
sense: (computing) Algorithm for sorting a list of items
word: counting sort
sense: (computing) Algorithm for sorting a list of items
word: distribution sort
sense: (computing) Algorithm for sorting a list of items
word: drunk man sort
sense: (computing) Algorithm for sorting a list of items
word: gnome sort
sense: (computing) Algorithm for sorting a list of items
word: heapsort
sense: (computing) Algorithm for sorting a list of items
word: in-place sort
sense: (computing) Algorithm for sorting a list of items
word: insertion sort
sense: (computing) Algorithm for sorting a list of items
word: introsort
sense: (computing) Algorithm for sorting a list of items
word: introspective sort
sense: (computing) Algorithm for sorting a list of items
word: library sort
sense: (computing) Algorithm for sorting a list of items
word: mergesort
sense: (computing) Algorithm for sorting a list of items
word: merge sort
sense: (computing) Algorithm for sorting a list of items
word: monkey sort
sense: (computing) Algorithm for sorting a list of items
word: pigeonhole sort
sense: (computing) Algorithm for sorting a list of items
word: quicksort
sense: (computing) Algorithm for sorting a list of items
word: radix sort
sense: (computing) Algorithm for sorting a list of items
word: selection sort
sense: (computing) Algorithm for sorting a list of items
word: shell sort
sense: (computing) Algorithm for sorting a list of items
word: smoothsort
sense: (computing) Algorithm for sorting a list of items
word: spaghetti sort
sense: (computing) Algorithm for sorting a list of items
word: stochastic sort
sense: (computing) Algorithm for sorting a list of items
word: stooge sort
sense: (computing) Algorithm for sorting a list of items
word: stupid sort
sense: (computing) Algorithm for sorting a list of items
word: timsort
Derived terms: sense: (computing) Algorithm for sorting a list of items
word: allsorts
sense: (computing) Algorithm for sorting a list of items
word: bogo-sort
sense: (computing) Algorithm for sorting a list of items
word: heapsort
sense: (computing) Algorithm for sorting a list of items
word: introsort
sense: (computing) Algorithm for sorting a list of items
word: mergesort
sense: (computing) Algorithm for sorting a list of items
word: quicksort
sense: (computing) Algorithm for sorting a list of items
word: smoothsort
sense: (computing) Algorithm for sorting a list of items
word: timsort
sense: non-computer-specific terms related to "sort"
word: all sorts
sense: non-computer-specific terms related to "sort"
word: in sort
sense: non-computer-specific terms related to "sort"
word: out of sorts
sense: non-computer-specific terms related to "sort"
word: sorta
sense: non-computer-specific terms related to "sort"
word: sort of
sense: non-computer-specific terms related to "sort"
word: that's your sort
sense: other "sort" terms, not sorted by sort
word: copy sort
sense: other "sort" terms, not sorted by sort
word: cycle sort
sense: other "sort" terms, not sorted by sort
word: good sort
sense: other "sort" terms, not sorted by sort
word: mergesort
sense: other "sort" terms, not sorted by sort
word: middling sort
sense: other "sort" terms, not sorted by sort
word: picture sort
sense: other "sort" terms, not sorted by sort
word: sort code
sense: other "sort" terms, not sorted by sort
word: topological sort