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sort

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sort

  [sawrt]
Use sort in a Sentence
–noun
1. a particular kind, species, variety, class, or group, distinguished by a common character or nature: to develop a new sort of painting; nice people, of course, but not really our sort.
2. character, quality, or nature: young people of a nice sort.
3. an example of something that is undistinguished or barely adequate: He is a sort of poet.
4. manner, fashion, or way: We spoke in this sort for several minutes.
5. Printing.
a. any of the individual characters making up a font of type.
b. characters of a particular font that are rarely used.
6. an instance of sorting.
–verb (used with object)
7. to arrange according to sort, kind, or class; separate into sorts; classify: to sort socks; to sort eggs by grade.
8. to separate or take from other sorts or from others (often fol. by out): to sort the good from the bad; to sort out the children's socks.
9. to assign to a particular class, group, or place (often fol. by with, together, etc.): to sort people together indiscriminately.
10. Scot. to provide with food and shelter.
11. Computers. to place (records) in order, as numerical or alphabetical, based on the contents of one or more keys contained in each record. Compare key 1 (def. 19).
–verb (used without object)
12. Archaic. to suit; agree; fit.
13. British Dialect. to associate, mingle, or be friendly.
—Verb phrase
14. sort out,
a. evolve; develop; turn out: We'll just have to wait and see how things sort out.
b. to put in order; clarify: After I sort things out here, I'll be able to concentrate on your problem.
—Idioms
15. of sorts,
a. of a mediocre or poor kind: a tennis player of sorts.
b. of one sort or another; of an indefinite kind.
Also, of a sort.
16. out of sorts,
a. in low spirits; depressed.
b. in poor health; indisposed; ill.
c. in a bad temper; irritable: to be out of sorts because of the weather.
d. Printing. short of certain characters of a font of type.
17. sort of, Informal. in a way; somewhat; rather: Their conversation was sort of tiresome.
Origin:
1200–50; (n.) ME < MF sorte < ML sort- (s. of sors) kind, allotted status or portion, lot, L: orig., voter's lot; (v.) ME sorten to allot, arrange, assort (< MF sortir) < L sortīrī to draw lots, deriv. of sors; later senses influenced by the n. and by assort

Related forms:
sort⋅a⋅ble, adjective
sort⋅a⋅bly, adverb
sorter, noun

Synonyms:
1. family, order, race, rank, character, nature.

Usage note:
See kind 2 .
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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sort   (sôrt)   
n.  

  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).

  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.

tr.v.   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.


[Middle English, from Old French, from Latin sors, sort-, lot; see ser-2 in Indo-European roots.]
sort'a·ble adj., sort'er n.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Word Origin & History

sort  (n.)
c.1380, from O.Fr. sorte "class, kind," from L. sortem (nom. sors) "lot, fate, share, portion, rank, category," from PIE base *ser- "to line up" (cf. L. serere "to arrange, attach, join;" see series). The sense evolution in V.L. is from "what is allotted to one by fate," to "fortune, condition," to "rank, class, order." Out of sorts "not in usual good condition" is attested from 1621, with lit. sense of "out of stock."

sort  (v.)
1358, "to arrange according to type or quality," from O.Fr. sortir "allot, sort, assort," from L. sortiri "draw lots, divide, choose," from sors (see sort (n.)). In some senses, the verb is a shortened form of assort.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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Computing Dictionary

sort
1. To arrange a collection of items in some specified order. The items - records in a file or data structures in memory - consist of one or more fields or members. One of these fields is designated as the "sort key" which means the records will be ordered according to the value of that field. Sometimes a sequence of key fields is specified such that if all earlier keys are equal then the later keys will be compared. Within each field some ordering is imposed, e.g. ascending or descending numerical, lexical ordering, or date.
Sorting is the subject of a great deal of study since it is a common operation which can consume a lot of computer time. There are many well-known sorting algorithms with different time and space behaviour and programming complexity.
Examples are quicksort, insertion sort, bubble sort, heap sort, and tree sort. These employ many different data structures to store sorted data, such as arrays, linked lists, and binary trees.
2. The Unix utility program for sorting lines of files.
Unix manual page: sort(1).
(1997-02-12)

The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, © 1993-2007 Denis Howe
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Idioms & Phrases

sort

see after a fashion (sort); all kinds (sorts) of; bad sort; it takes all sorts; kind (sort) of; nothing of the kind (sort); of sorts; out of sorts.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.
Copyright © 1997. Published by Houghton Mifflin.
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