Cat"e*go*ry (?), n.;
pl. Categories (#). [L.
categoria, Gr. &?;, fr. &?; to accuse, affirm, predicate; &?; down, against + &?; to harrangue, assert, fr. &?; assembly.]
1. (Logic.) One of the highest classes to which the
objects of knowledge or thought can be reduced, and by which
they can be
arranged in a system; an ultimate or undecomposable conception; a predicament.
The categories or predicaments
-- the former a Greek word,
the latter its literal translation in the Latin language -- were intended by Aristotle and his followers as an enumeration of all things capable of being named; an enumeration by the summa genera i.e.,
the most extensive classes into which things could be distributed.
J. S. Mill.
2. Class; also, state, condition, or predicament; as, we are both in the same
category.
There is in modern literature a whole class
of writers standing within the same category.
De Quincey.
Hear it pronounced