category

Definition

A group, often named or numbered, to which items are assigned based on similarity or defined criteria.

Etymology

Late Middle English, borrowed from French catégorie, from Middle French categorie, from Late Latin catēgoria (“class of predicables”), from Ancient Greek κατηγορία (katēgoría, “head of predicables”). Doublet of categoria.

Example Sentences

• "This steep and dangerous climb belongs to the most difficult category."
• "I wouldn’t put this book in the same category as the author’s first novel."
• "The traditional way of describing the similarities and differences between constituents is to say that they belong to categories of various types. Thus, words like boy, girl, man, woman, etc. are traditionally said to belong to the category of Nouns, whereas words like a, the, this, and that are traditionally said to belong to the category of Determiners."

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