Nearby Words
noun, plural -ries.
1.
any general or comprehensive division; a class.
2.
a classificatory division in any field of knowledge, as a phylum or any of its subdivisions in biology.
3.
Metaphysics.
a.
(in Aristotelian philosophy) any of the fundamental modes of existence, such as substance, quality, and quantity, as determined by analysis of the different possible kinds of predication.
b.
(in Kantian philosophy) any of the fundamental principles of the understanding, as the principle of causation.
c.
any classification of terms that is ultimate and not susceptible to further analysis.
4.
categories. Also called Guggenheim. (used with a singular verb) a game in which a key word and a list of categories, as dogs, automobiles, or rivers, are selected, and in which each player writes down a word in each category that begins with each of the letters of the key word, the player writing down the most words within a time limit being declared the winner.
5.
EXPAND6.
COLLAPSEGrammar. part of speech.
Origin:
1580–90; < Late Latin catēgoria < Greek katēgoría accusation (also, kind of predication), equivalent to katḗgor(os) accuser, affirmer (katēgor(eîn) to accuse, affirm, literally, speak publicly against, equivalent to kata- cata- + -agoreîn to speak before the agora + -os noun suffix) + -ia -y3
1580–90; < Late Latin catēgoria < Greek katēgoría accusation (also, kind of predication), equivalent to katḗgor(os) accuser, affirmer (katēgor(eîn) to accuse, affirm, literally, speak publicly against, equivalent to kata- cata- + -agoreîn to speak before the agora + -os noun suffix) + -ia -y3
Synonyms
1. group, grouping, type.
1. group, grouping, type.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
Cite This Source
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Category
is always a great word to know.
So is zedonk. Does it mean:
| the offspring of a zebra and a donkey. |
| an arrangement of five objects, as trees, in a square or rectangle, one at each corner and one in the middle. |
Collins
World English Dictionary
| category (ˈkætɪɡərɪ) | |
| —n , pl -ries | |
| 1. | a class or group of things, people, etc, possessing some quality or qualities in common; a division in a system of classification |
| 2. | metaphysics any one of the most basic classes into which objects and concepts can be analysed |
| 3. | a. (in the philosophy of Aristotle) any one of ten most fundamental modes of being, such as quantity, quality, and substance |
| b. (in the philosophy of Kant) one of twelve concepts required by human beings to interpret the empirical world | |
| c. See also category mistake any set of objects, concepts, or expressions distinguished from others within some logical or linguistic theory by the intelligibility of a specific set of statements concerning them | |
| [C15: from Late Latin catēgoria, from Greek katēgoria, from kategorein to accuse, assert] | |
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
Cite This Source
Etymonline
Word Origin & History
category
1588, from M.Fr. catégorie, from L.L. categoria, from Gk. kategorein "to accuse, assert, predicate," from kata "down to," + agoreuein "to declaim (in the assembly)," from agora "public assembly." Original sense of "accuse" weakened to "assert, name" by the time Aristotle applied kategoria to his
EXPAND10 classes of things that can be named. Categorize is attested from 1705; categorization is from 1886.
COLLAPSE
"category should be used by no-one who is not prepared to state (1) that he does not mean class, & (2) that he knows the difference between the two ...." [Fowler]
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
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FOLDOC
Computing Dictionary
category definition
theoryA category K is a collection of objects, obj(K), and a collection of morphisms (or "arrows"), mor(K) such that
1. Each morphism f has a "typing" on a pair of objects A, B written f:A->B. This is read 'f is a morphism from A to B'. A is the "source" or "domain" of f and B is its "target" or "co-domain".
2. There is a partial function on morphisms called composition and denoted by an infix ring symbol, o. We may form the "composite" g o f : A -> C if we have g:B->C and f:A->B.
3. This composition is associative: h o (g o f) = (h o g) o f.
4. Each object A has an identity morphism id_A:A->A associated with it. This is the identity under composition, shown by the equations
id__B o f = f = f o id__A.
In general, the morphisms between two objects need not form a set (to avoid problems with Russell's paradox). An example of a category is the collection of sets where the objects are sets and the morphisms are functions.
Sometimes the composition ring is omitted. The use of capitals for objects and lower case letters for morphisms is widespread but not universal. Variables which refer to categories themselves are usually written in a script font.
(1997-10-06)
Word Dynamo By Dictionary.com
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