cat·e·go·ry

(kăt′ĭ-gôr′ē)

n. pl. cat·e·go·ries

1. A specifically defined division in a system of classification; a class.

2. A general class of ideas, terms, or things that mark divisions or coordinations within a conceptual scheme, especially:

a. Aristotle's modes of objective being, such as quality, quantity, or relation, that are inherent in all things.

b. Kant's modes of subjective understanding, such as singularity, universality, or particularity, that organize perceptions into knowledge.

c. A basic logical type of philosophical conception in post-Kantian philosophy.

3. Linguistics

a. A property or structural unit of a language, such as a part of speech or a type of phrase.

b. A specific grammatical defining property of a linguistic unit or class, such as number or gender in the noun and tense or voice in the verb.

4. Mathematics A class of objects, together with a class of morphisms between those objects, and an associative composition rule for those morphisms. Categories are used to study a wide variety of mathematical constructions in a similar way.

[French catégorie, from Old French, from Late Latin catēgoria, class of predicables, from Greek katēgoriā, accusation, charge, from katēgorein, to accuse, predicate : kat-, kata-, down, against; see cata- + agoreuein, ēgor-, to speak in public (from agorā, marketplace, assembly; see ger- in Indo-European roots).]

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

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. (Philosophy) metaphysics any one of the most basic classes into which objects and concepts can be analysed

3. (Philosophy)

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. 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. See also category mistake

[C15: from Late Latin catēgoria, from Greek katēgoria, from kategorein to accuse, assert]

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

cat•e•go•ry

(ˈkæt ɪˌgɔr i, -ˌgoʊr i)

n., pl. -ries.

1. any division in a system of classification; class; group.

2. any of the classes, concepts, or terms that are basic in a field of knowledge.

[1580–90; < Late Latin catēgoria < Greek katēgoría accusation, predication, category (kat- cat- + -ēgorein to speak < agorá public assembly; see agora¹)]

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Noun	1.	category - a collection of things sharing a common attribute; "there are two classes of detergents" class, family grammatical category, syntactic category - (grammar) a category of words having the same grammatical properties substitution class, paradigm - the class of all items that can be substituted into the same position (or slot) in a grammatical sentence (are in paradigmatic relation with one another) aggregation, collection, accumulation, assemblage - several things grouped together or considered as a whole brass family - (music) the family of brass instruments violin family - (music) the family of bowed stringed instruments woodwind family - (music) the family of woodwind instruments stamp - a type or class; "more men of his stamp are needed" declension - a class of nouns or pronouns or adjectives in Indo-European languages having the same (or very similar) inflectional forms; "the first declension in Latin" conjugation - a class of verbs having the same inflectional forms denomination - a class of one kind of unit in a system of numbers or measures or weights or money; "he flashed a fistful of bills of large denominations" histocompatibility complex - a family of fifty or more genes on the sixth human chromosome that code for proteins on the surfaces of cells and that play a role in the immune response superphylum - (biology) a taxonomic group ranking between a phylum and below a class or subclass
	2.	category - a general concept that marks divisions or coordinations in a conceptual scheme concept, conception, construct - an abstract or general idea inferred or derived from specific instances kind, sort, form, variety - a category of things distinguished by some common characteristic or quality; "sculpture is a form of art"; "what kinds of desserts are there?" pigeonhole - a specific (often simplistic) category rubric - category name; "it is usually discussed under the rubric of `functional obesity'" way - a general category of things; used in the expression `in the way of'; "they didn't have much in the way of clothing"

category

noun class, grouping, heading, head, order, sort, list, department, type, division, section, rank, grade, classification The entries were organised into six different catagories.

Collins Thesaurus of the English Language – Complete and Unabridged 2nd Edition. 2002 © HarperCollins Publishers 1995, 2002

category

noun

A subdivision of a larger group:

class, classification, order, set.

Translations

فِئَةفِئةٌ،طَبَقَةٌ، صِنْفٌ

kategoriedruh

kategoriklassegruppe

kategorialuokka

kategorija

kategória

flokkur, hópur, tegund

categoria categoricamente categorico ceto

部門

범주

categoria

kategorijaklasifikuotirūšiuoti

kategorija

kategória

kategorija

kategori

หมวดหมู่

kategori sınıf

hạng mục

种类类别

category

[ˈkætɪgərɪ]

A. N → categoría f

B. CPD Category A prisoner N (Brit) → preso/a m/f peligroso/a

Collins Spanish Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005

category

[ˈkætɪgri] n → catégorie f

Collins English/French Electronic Resource. © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

category

n → Kategorie f, → Klasse f; Category A prisoner (Brit) → ˜ Schwerverbrecher(in) m(f)

Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

category

[ˈkætɪg/ərɪ] n → categoria

Collins Italian Dictionary 1st Edition © HarperCollins Publishers 1995

category

(ˈkӕtəgəri) – plural ˈcategories – noun

a class or division of things (or people). various categories of goods on sale.

ˈcategorize, ˈcategorise verb

to put (things or people) into a category.

category

→ فِئَة kategorie kategori Kategorie κατηγορία categoría kategoria catégorie kategorija categoria 部門 범주 categorie kategori kategoria categoria категория kategori หมวดหมู่ kategori hạng mục 种类

category

n. categoría, clase.

Mentioned in

References in classic literature

In the second category Pierre reckoned himself and others like him, seeking and vacillating, who had not yet found in Freemasonry a straight and comprehensible path, but hoped to do so.

View in context

'Double', 'half','greater', fall under the category of relation; 'in a the market place', 'in the Lyceum', under that of place; 'yesterday', 'last year', under that of time.

View in context

The first category, generally speaking, are men conservative in temperament and law-abiding; they live under control and love to be controlled.

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An observer unacquainted with its history would hardly put it into the category of "haunted houses," yet in all the region round such is its evil reputation.

View in context

Its distinguishing principle, probability, corresponds to the literal actuality of the photograph and puts it distinctly into the category of reporting; whereas the free wing of the romancer enables him to mount to such altitudes of imagination as he may be fitted to attain; and the first three essentials of the literary art are imagination, imagination and imagination.

View in context

For instance, beneath the French criticism of the economic functions of money, they wrote "Alienation of Humanity," and beneath the French criticism of the bourgeois State they wrote "dethronement of the Category of the General," and so forth.

View in context

Darya Alexandrovna noticed that at this point in his explanation he grew confused, and she did not quite understand this digression, but she felt that having once begun to speak of matters near his heart, of which he could not speak to Anna, he was now making a clean breast of everything, and that the question of his pursuits in the country fell into the same category of matters near his heart, as the question of his relations with Anna.

View in context

Betteredge's present effort at corresponding with me came within this category. Mr.

View in context

The patron of The Young Amelia proposed as a place of landing the Island of Monte Cristo, which being completely deserted, and having neither soldiers nor revenue officers, seemed to have been placed in the midst of the ocean since the time of the heathen Olympus by Mercury, the god of merchants and robbers, classes of mankind which we in modern times have separated if not made distinct, but which antiquity appears to have included in the same category. At the mention of Monte Cristo Dantes started with joy; he rose to conceal his emotion, and took a turn around the smoky tavern, where all the languages of the known world were jumbled in a lingua franca.

View in context

If you gently push the swing-door ajar and peer in you draw upon yourself the contemptuous looks of the barmaid, who at once puts you down in the same category with area sneaks and cadgers.

View in context

(though at the cost of how much humiliation when they were made to realise their error!), and it was also possible that He would be pitiful to those who had had no chance of learning the truth,--this was reasonable enough, though such were the activities of the Missionary Society there could not be many in this condition--but if the chance had been theirs and they had neglected it (in which category were obviously Roman Catholics and Dissenters), the punishment was sure and merited.

View in context

You are not included, in the Prayer-book category, among the "miserable sinners."

View in context