Sort | Webster's Dictionary (1865)

Sôrt, n.

noun

n. [Fr. sorte, It. sorta, sorte, Pg. sorte, Sp. suerte, Ger. sorte, D. soort, Dan. & Sw. sort, from Lat. sors, sortis, a lot, part.]

Sense 1. Lot. [Obs.]

Let blockish Ajax draw The sort to fight with Hector. Shak.

Sense 2. A kind or species; any number or collection of individual persons or things characterized by the same or like qualities; a class or order; as, a sort of men; a sort of horses; a sort of trees; a sort of poems or writings.

Sense 3. Manner; form of being or acting.

Flowers, in such sort worn, can neither be smelt nor seen well by those that wear them. Hooker.

To Adam in what sort shall I appear? Milton.

I'll deceive them in another sort. Shak.

Sense 4. Condition above the vulgar; rank. [Obs.]

Sense 5. A knot or group of persons who happen to be together. [Obs.] “A sort of shepherd grooms.” Spenser. “A sort of rogues.” Massinger.

A boy, a child, and we a sort of us, Vowed against his voyage. Chapman.

Sense 6. A herd or group of animals. [Obs.] “A sort of steers.” Spenser.

Sense 7. Degree of any quality.

I shall not be wholly without praise, if in some sort I have copied his style. Dryden.

Sense 8. A pair; a set; a suit. Johnson.

Sense 9. (pl.) (Print.) Letters, points, marks, spaces, or quadrats, that are either deficient or redundant in quantity.

Out of sorts (Print.), with some letters, or sorts of type, in the font, deficient or exhausted; out of order; hence, unwell. [Colloq.]—To run upon sorts (Print.), to use or require a greater number of some particular letters or marks than the regular proportion, as an index, for example.

Synonyms—Kind; species; rank; condition. — SORT, KIND. Kind originally denoted things of the same family, or bound together by some natural affinity; and hence, a class. Sort signifies that which constitutes a particular lot or parcel, not implying, necessarily, the idea of affinity, but of mere assemblage. The two words are now used to a great extent interchangeably, though sort (perhaps from its original meaning of lot) sometimes carries with it a slight tone of disparagement or contempt, as when we say, that sort of people, that sort of language, &c.

As when the total kind Of birds, in orderly array of wing, Came summoned over Eden, to receive Their names of thee. Milton.

None of nobler sort Would so offend a virgin. Shak.

Sôrt, v. t.

verbtransitive

[imp. & p. p. SORTED; p. pr. & vb. n. SORTING.] 1. To separate, as things having like qualities, from other things, and place in distinct classes or divisions; as, to sort cloths according to their colors; to sort wool or thread according to its fineness.

Shell-fish have been, by some of the ancients, compared and sorted with insects. Bacon.

Rays which differ in refrangibility may be parted and sorted from one another. Newton.

Sense 2. To reduce to order from a state of confusion.

Sense 3. To conjoin; to put together in distribution.

The swain perceiving, by her words ill sorted, That she was wholly from herself transported. Brown.

Sense 4. To choose from a number; to select; to cull.

That he may sort her out a worthy spouse. Chapman.

I'll sort some other time to visit you. Shak.

Sôrt, v. i.

verbintransitive

Sense 1. To be joined with others of the same species; to agree.

Nor do metals only sort with metals in the earth, and minerals with minerals. Woodward.

Sense 2. To consort; to associate; to conjoin.

The illiberality of parents toward children makes them base, and sort with any company. Bacon.

Sense 3. To suit; to fit.

They are happy whose natures sort with their vocations. Bacon.

Sense 4. To terminate; to issue; to have success; to come about; to fall out.

Things sort not to my will. Herbert.

Sense 5. To come to an agreement; to harmonize.

I can not tell you precisely how they sorted. W. Scott.