cat·e·go·ry (k t  -gôr  , -g r)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 everything. 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 classificatory structural unit or property of a language, such as a part of speech, verb phrase, or object. 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.
[French catégorie, from Old French, from Late Latin catgoria, class of predicables, from Greek katgori , accusation, charge, from katgorein, to accuse, predicate : kat-, kata-, down, against; see cata- + agoreuein, gor-, to speak in public (from agor, marketplace, assembly; see ger- in Indo-European roots).] |
category Noun pl -ries a class or group of things or people with some quality or qualities in common [Greek katēgoria assertion]
ThesaurusLegend: Synonyms Related Words Antonyms | Noun | 1. |  category - a collection of things sharing a common attribute; "there are two classes of detergents"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) stamp - a type or class; "more men of his stamp are needed" sex - either of the two categories (male or female) into which most organisms are divided; "the war between the sexes" 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 schemekind, 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  Translations
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