sort

Noun

sort (plural sorts)

1. A general type.
   • 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y., London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:

     I stumbled along through the young pines and huckleberry bushes. Pretty soon I struck into a sort of path that, I cal'lated, might lead to the road I was hunting for. It twisted and turned, and, the first thing I knew, made a sudden bend around a bunch of bayberry scrub and opened out into a big clear space like a lawn.

   • 1921, Ben Travers, chapter 1, in A Cuckoo in the Nest, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 1925, →OCLC:

     “ […] the awfully hearty sort of Christmas cards that people do send to other people that they don't know at all well. You know. The kind that have mottoes like
       Here's rattling good luck and roaring good cheer, / With lashings of food and great hogsheads of beer. […]”

   • 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 17, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:

     The face which emerged was not reassuring. […]. He was not a mongol but there was a deficiency of a sort there, and it was not made more pretty by a latter-day hair cut which involved eccentrically long elf-locks and oiled black curls.

   • 2013 June 14, Sam Leith, “Where the profound meets the profane”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 1, page 37:

     Swearing doesn't just mean what we now understand by "dirty words". It is entwined, in social and linguistic history, with the other sort of swearing: vows and oaths.

2. (archaic) Manner, way; form of being or acting.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “(please specify the book)”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     Soon as the term of those six years shall cease,
     Ye then shall hither back return again,
     The marriage to accomplish vow’d betwixt you twain.
     Which for my part, I covet to perform,
     In sort as through the world I did proclaim,
     That whoso kill’d that monster (most deform)
     And him in hardy battle overcame,
     Should have mine only daughter to his Dame […]

   • 1845, Richard Hooker, Works of that Learned and Judicious Divine […] ‎:

     Such is that argument whereby they that wore on their heads garlands are charged as transgressors of nature’s law, and guilty of sacrilege against God the Lord of nature, inasmuch as flowers, in such sort worn can neither be smelt nor seen well by those that wear them; and God made flowers sweet and beautiful, that being seen and smelt unto, they might so delight.

   • ca 1590, William Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus:

     I’ll deceive you in another sort

   • 1667, John Milton, Paradise lost‎:

     But to Adam in what sort
     Shall I appeer? shall I to him make known
     As yet my change, and give him to partake
     Full happiness with mee, or rather not,
     But keep the odds of Knowledge within my power
     Without copartner?

   • 1697, John Dryden, The Works of John Dryden, Volume V: Poems‎, →ISBN:

     I acknowledge, with Segrais, that I have not succeeded in this attempt, according to my desire: yet I shall not be wholly without praise, if in some sort I may be allow’d to have copied the Clearness, the Purity, the Easiness and the Magnificence of his stile.

   • 1910, Emerson Hough, chapter II, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:

     Carried somehow, somewhither, for some reason, on these surging floods, were these travelers, of errand not wholly obvious to their fellows, yet of such sort as to call into query alike the nature of their errand and their own relations. It is easily earned repetition to state that Josephine St. Auban's was a presence not to be concealed.

   • 1922, E[ric] R[ücker] Eddison, The Worm Ouroboros‎, London: Jonathan Cape, page 27:

     With the might of that throw Goldry’s wrath departed from him and left him strengthless, in such sort that he reeled as he went from the wrastling ground.

3. (obsolete) Condition above the vulgar; rank.
   • c. 1599, William Shakespeare, Henry V:

     “What think you, Captain Fluellen? is it fit this soldier keep his oath?”
     “He is a craven and a villain else, an’t please your majesty, in my conscience.”
     “It may be his enemy is a gentleman of great sort, quite from the answer of his degree.”
     “Though he be as good a gentleman as the devil is, as Lucifer and Belzebub himself, it is necessary, look your grace, that he keep his vow and his oath.”

4. (informal) A person evaluated in a certain way.

   good sort, bad sort

   • 1999 October, Heinrich Müller, Müller Journals: 1948-1950, The Washington years‎:

     There is no problem with this and he seems to be a decent sort with very good reflexes. I will have Felix replaced with him when we get back to Washington because he is more acceptable.

   • 2014, Mykel D. Myles, The Long Night Of The Demon, →ISBN:

     Amo, he is the prince. And he is a good sort. You, My Husband, should be among his circle

   • 2014, Seema Jha, Charade978-1-4969-8816-4:

     One doesn't need to be Einstein to realize he is a bad sort / My wife always said as much.

5. (obsolete) Group, company.
   • 1595, Edmund Spenser, The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser‎:

     a sort of shepherds suing of the Chace

   • 1687, John Dryden, The Hind and the Panther‎:

     a sort of doves were housed too near their hall

   • 1622, Philip Massinger, The Virgin Martyr‎:

     What good got you by wearing out your feet,
     To run on scurvy errands to the poor,
     and to bear mony to a sort of rogues
     And lousy prisoners?

   • 1616, George Chapman, The Odysseys of Homer‎:

     A boy, a child, and we a sort of us,
     Vowed against his voyage, yet admit it thus!

6. (British, Australia, informal) A good-looking woman.
7. An act of sorting.

   I had a sort of my cupboard.

8. (computing) An algorithm for sorting a list of items into a particular sequence.

   Popular algorithms for sorts include quicksort and heapsort.

   • 2014, Donald E. Knuth, The Art of Computer Programming. Sorting and Searching, →ISBN:

     The fastest general algorithm we have considered that sorts keys in a stable manner is the list merge sort, but it does not use minimum storage

10. (typography) A piece of metal type used to print one letter, character, or symbol in a particular size and style.
    • 2024 May 5, Holly Black, “Remnants of a Legendary Typeface Have Been Rescued From the River Thames”, in artnet‎:

      Green managed to recover a total of 151 sorts (the name for individual pieces of type) out of a possible 500,000.

11. (mathematics) A type.
12. (obsolete) Fate, fortune, destiny.
    • c. 1587–1588, [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire, London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act II, scene vii:

      For he is groſſe and like the maſſie earth,
      That mooues not vpwards, nor by princely deeds
      Doth meane to ſoare aboue the highest ſort.

13. (obsolete) Anything used to determine the answer to a question by chance; lot.
    • c. 1602, William Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida:

      No, make a lottery;
      And, by device, let blockish Ajax draw
      The sort to fight with Hector.

14. (obsolete) A full set of anything, such as a pair of shoes or a suit of clothes.^[1]

Verb

sort (third-person singular simple present sorts, present participle sorting, simple past and past participle sorted)

2. (transitive) To separate items into different categories according to certain criteria that determine their sorts.

   Synonyms: categorize, class, classify, group

   Sort the letters in those bags into a separate pile for each language.

   • 1704, Isaac Newton, Opticks:

     And seeing the Rays which differ in Refrangibility may be parted and sorted from one another, and that either by Refraction..., or by Reflexion..., and then the several sorts apart at equal Incidences suffer unequal Refractions,...; it's manifest that the Sun's Light is an heterogeneous Mixture of Rays..., as was proposed.

   • 1929, Percival Christopher Wren, Good Gestes, The McSnorrt Reminiscent:

     "Is there a man among ye has the Gaelic? ... Is there a man among ye can speak English even? ... Is there a man among ye at all? Ye gang o' lasceevious auld de'ils, decked oot like weemin, in spite o' yer hairy long whuskers, full beards and full skirts, ye deceitful besoms. Whuskers and petticoats wi' the vices o' both and the virtues o' neither. I'll sorrt ye." And there were sounds of alarums and excursions within.

   • 2017 August 27, Brandon Nowalk, “Game Of Thrones slows down for the longest, and best, episode of the season (newbies)”, in The Onion AV Club‎:

     Jaime finally leaves her [Cersei], walking right past his imminent executioner, and rides out of King’s Landing, finally neatly sorting our humans into good and evil and Bronn.

4. (transitive) To arrange into some sequence, usually numerically, alphabetically or chronologically.

   Synonyms: order, rank

   Sort those bells into a row in ascending sequence of pitch.

5. (transitive) To conjoin; to put together in distribution; to class.
   • 1635, Francis Bacon, Sylva Sylvarum, Or, A Naturall Historie in Ten Centuries‎:

     Shellfish have been, by some of the ancients, compared and sorted with insecta.

   • 1599, John Davies, Nosce Teipsum‎:

     For when she sorts things present with things past
     And thereby things to come doth oft foresee;
     When she doth doubt at first, and chuse at last,
     These acts her owne, without her body bee.

6. (transitive, obsolete) To conform; to adapt; to accommodate.
   • ca 1591, William Shakespeare, Henry VI part 2:

     I pray thee, sort thy heart to patience.

7. (transitive, obsolete) To choose from a number; to select; to cull.
   • 1616, George Chapman, The Odysseys of Homer‎:

     To send his mother to her father's house, that he may sort her out a worthy spouse

   • ca 1591, William Shakespeare, Henry VI part 1:

     I'll sort some other time to visit you.

8. (intransitive) To join or associate with others, especially with others of the same kind or species; to agree.
   • 1625, Francis Bacon, Of Parents and Children:

     The illiberality of Parents in allowance towards their children is an harmefull error: makes them base; acquaints them with shifts, makes them sort with meane companie; and makes them surfet more, when they come to plenty.

   • 1695, John Woodward, An essay toward a natural history of the earth:

     Nor do Metalls only sort and herd with Metalls in the Earth : and Minerals with Minerals : but both indifferently and in common together: Iron with Vitriol, with Alum, with Sulphur: Copper with Sulphur, with Vitriol, &c. yea Iron, Copper, Lead, Nitre, Sulphur, Vitriol, and perhaps some more in one and the same Mass.

9. (intransitive) To suit; to fit; to be in accord; to harmonize.
   • 1612, Francis Bacon, Of Nature in Men:

     They are happie men, whose natures sort with their vocations, otherwise they may say Multum incola fuit anima mea; when they converse in those things they doe not affect.

   • 1814, Walter Scott, Waverley:

     I cannot tell ye precisely how they sorted; but they agreed sae right that Donald was invited to dance at the wedding in his Highland trews, and they said that there was never sae meikle siller clinked in his purse either before or since.

11. (British, colloquial, transitive) To fix (a problem) or handle (a task).

    Synonym: sort out

    • 2024 February 25, Donna Ferguson, “‘Does rewilding sort climate change? Yes!’: UK expert says nature can save planet and not harm farming”, in The Observer‎:

      ‘Does rewilding sort climate change? Yes!’: UK expert says nature can save planet and not harm farming [title]

12. (British, colloquial, transitive) To attack physically.

    Synonym: sort out

    If he comes nosing around here again I'll sort him!

13. (transitive) To geld.

Derived terms

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [ˈsoɐ̯d̥]

Adjective

sort

1. black (color/colour)
2. under the table; done in secret so as to avoid taxation

Adverb

sort

1. under the table; secretly, so as to avoid taxation

See also

References

• “sort,2” in Den Danske Ordbog

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [ˈsɒˀd̥]

Noun

sort c (singular definite sorten, plural indefinite sorter)

1. sort, kind
2. quality
3. brand
4. (botany) cultivar

References

• “sort,1” in Den Danske Ordbog

Declension

Noun

sort m (plural sorts)

1. fate, destiny (consequences or effects predetermined by past events or a divine will)

   Je suis tombé amoureux de lui depuis le premier jour où je l’ai vu. C’était le sort. ― I fell in love with him since the first day I laid eyes on him. It was destiny.

2. lot (something used in determining a question by chance)
3. spell (magical incantation)

Verb

sort

1. third-person singular present indicative of sortir

Related terms

• sordine

See also

• mut

Noun

sort (plural sortok)

1. shorts (pants worn primarily in the summer that do not go lower than the knees)

Noun

sort

1. accusative singular of sor

Declension

Synonyms

• destinné (“fate, destiny”)

Alternative forms

• svart

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /suʈ/
• Rhymes: -uʈ

Adjective

sort (neuter singular sort, definite singular and plural sorte, comparative sortere, indefinite plural sortest, definite plural sorteste)

1. black (color/colour)
2. illegal; in avoidance of taxes

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /sɔʈ/
• Rhymes: -ɔʈ

Noun

sort m (definite singular sorten, indefinite plural sorter, definite plural sortene)

1. a sort, kind or type

Declension

Derived terms

Related terms

Declension

Usage notes

• "A/<count> kind(s) of X" is expressed as "en/<count> sort(er)s X," and "what kind(s) of X" as "vad för sorts X."
• Though traditionally considered incorrect, many native speakers will intuitively let the noun after sorts determine the gender rather than sort, for example saying "ett sorts hus" rather than "en sorts hus". See this question to Språket on Sveriges Radio.

Declension

Synonyms

• slag

Derived terms

Related terms

• sortera
• sortiment

See also

• sorts