Word: sort Part of Speech: noun 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”). Pronunciation: /soɹt/, /sɔːt/, /soːt/, /sɔɹt/ 1. A general type. Example: 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. Example: “[…] 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.[…]” 2. Manner, way; form of being or acting. Labels: archaic Example: 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 […] Example: 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. 3. Condition above the vulgar; rank. Labels: obsolete Example: “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.” 4. A person evaluated in a certain way. Labels: informal Example: good sort, bad sort Example: 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. 5. Group, company. Labels: obsolete Example: a sort of shepherds suing of the Chace Example: a sort of doves were housed too near their hall 6. A good-looking woman. Labels: Australia, UK, informal 7. An act of sorting. Example: I had a sort of my cupboard. 8. An algorithm for sorting a list of items into a particular sequence. Example: Popular algorithms for sorts include quicksort and heapsort. Example: 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 9. A piece of metal type used to print one letter, character, or symbol in a particular size and style. Example: Green managed to recover a total of 151 sorts (the name for individual pieces of type) out of a possible 500,000. 10. A type. 11. Fate, fortune, destiny. Labels: obsolete Example: 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. 12. Anything used to determine the answer to a question by chance; lot. Labels: obsolete Example: No, make a lottery; And, by device, let blockish Ajax draw The sort to fight with Hector. 13. A full set of anything, such as a pair of shoes or a suit of clothes. Labels: obsolete