class
noun · verb
Simple meaning
A group of people or things, or learning received in school
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
klassIPA pronunciation (US)
klæs
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A collection of things sharing a common attribute
“There are two classes of detergents.”
countable
A group, collection, category or set sharing characteristics or attributes.
sociologycountable
A social grouping, based on job, wealth, etc. In Britain, society is commonly split into three main classes: upper class, middle class and working class.
countable
A group of students who commenced or completed their education during a particular year. A school class.
Education imparted in a series of lessons or meetings
A series of lessons covering a single subject.
verb
transitive
To divide into classes, as students; to form into, or place in, a class or classes.
transitive
To assign to a class; to classify.
intransitive
To be grouped or classed.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A1 · Beginner (estimated)
- Frequency
- Very Common
- Typical Use
- General English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A collection of things sharing a common attribute
Used this way, class is a common word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
“There are two classes of detergents.”
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Usage note
It most often appears in the pattern “class of …”, which is worth copying when you use it.
Natural pattern: class of …
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use class
- “Early morning classes are always sleepy.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A large class of arthropods including spiders and ticks and scorpions and daddy longlegs.
One of two subgroups of Nematoda used in some classification systems.
A large class of sedentary marine coelenterates that includes sea anemones and corals.
A large class of sedentary marine coelenterates that includes sea anemones and corals.
Octopuses.
Arthropods having the body composed of numerous double somites each with two pairs of legs: millipedes.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
Arranged into classes.
The act of distributing things into classes or categories of the same type.
Arrange or order by classes or categories.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.