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.
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 , n. [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.) 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 (?), n. [F. sorl, L. sors, sortis. See Sort kind.]
Chance; lot; destiny. [Obs.]
By aventure, or sort, or cas [chance].
Chaucer. Let blockish Ajax draw
The sort to fight with
Hector.
Shak.
Hear it pronounced