SORTS
Noun
sorts
plural of sort
Verb
sorts
Third-person singular simple present indicative form of sort
Anagrams
• rosts
Source: Wiktionary
SORT
Sort, n. Etym: [F. sorl, L. sors, sortis. See Sort kind.]
Definition: Chance; lot; destiny. [Obs.]
By aventure, or sort, or cas [chance]. Chaucer.
Let blockish Ajax draw The sort to fight with Hector. Shak.
Sort, n. Etym: [F. sorie (cf. It. sorta, sorte), from L. sors, sorti,
a lot, part, probably akin to serere to connect. See Series, and cf.
Assort, Consort, Resort, Sorcery, Sort lot.]
1. 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.
2. Manner; form of being or acting.
Which for my part I covet to perform, In sort as through the world I
did proclaim. Spenser.
Flowers, in such sort worn, can neither be smelt nor seen well by
those that wear them. Hooker.
I'll deceive you in another sort. Shak.
To Adam in what sort Shall I appear Milton.
I shall not be wholly without praise, if in some sort I have copied
his style. Dryden.
3. Condition above the vulgar; rank. [Obs.] Shak.
4. A chance group; a company of persons who happen to be together; a
troop; also, an assemblage of animals. [Obs.] "A sort of shepherds."
Spenser. "A sort of steers." Spenser. "A sort of doves." Dryden. "A
sort of rogues." Massinger.
A boy, a child, and we a sort of us, Vowed against his voyage.
Chapman.
5. A pair; a set; a suit. Johnson.
6. pl. (Print.)
Definition: Letters, figures, points, marks, spaces, or quadrats, belonging
to a case, separately considered. Out of sorts (Print.), with some
letters or sorts of type deficient or exhausted in the case or font;
hence, colloquially, out of order; ill; vexed; disturbed.
– To run upon sorts (Print.), to use or require a greater number of
some particular letters, figures, or marks than the regular
proportion, as, for example, in making an index.
Syn.
– 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 of 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.
As when the total kind Of birds, in orderly array on wing, Came
summoned over Eden to receive Their names of there. Milton.
None of noble sort Would so offend a virgin. Shak.
Sort, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Sorted; p. pr. & vb. n. Sorting.]
1. To separate, and place in distinct classes or divisions, as things
having different qualities; as, to sort cloths according to their
colors; to sort wool or thread according to its fineness.
Rays which differ in refrangibility may be parted and sorted from one
another. Sir I. Newton.
2. To reduce to order from a confused state. Hooker.
3. To conjoin; to put together in distribution; to class.
Shellfish have been, by some of the ancients, compared and sorted
with insects. Bacon.
She sorts things present with things past. Sir J. Davies.
4. To choose from a number; to select; to cull.
That he may sort out a worthy spouse. Chapman.
I'll sort some other time to visit you. Shak.
5. To conform; to adapt; to accommodate. [R.]
I pray thee, sort thy heart to patience. Shak.
Sort, v. i.
1. To join or associate with others, esp. with others of the same
kind or species; to agree.
Nor do metals only sort and herd with metals in the earth, and
minerals with minerals. Woodward.
The illiberality of parents towards children makes them base, and
sort with any company. Bacon.
2. To suit; to fit; to be in accord; to harmonize.
They are happy whose natures sort with their vocations. Bacon.
Things sort not to my will. herbert.
I can not tell you precisely how they sorted. Sir W. Scott.
Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition