triage

Definition

Assessment or sorting according to quality, need, etc., especially to determine how resources will be allocated.

Etymology

From French triage, from trier (“to sort”).

Example Sentences

• "Let us think of triage, and remember the word's origins. It began with French wool growers in the eighteenth century, but its most illuminating use comes from eighteenth century coffee bean growers, who sorted their beans into best, middling, and broken. The last category came to be known as 'triage coffee.' In war we attend to the most seriously wounded first, which is how most of [us] understand the word today. […] Therefore to protect the best and the middling, we must sell off our 'triage coffee.'"
• "[Mike Davis] notes that the 'late capitalist triage of humanity' has 'already taken place'."
• "Similarly, any group of sidings is known to army railway personnel as a "triage". This word is derived from the French verb trier, which means literally "to sort," and hence "triage" has become the common army expression for a marshalling yard."