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sort

noun · verb

Simple meaning

A person evaluated in a certain way.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

sawrt
US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈsɔɹt

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. informal

    A person evaluated in a certain way.

  2. An act of sorting.

  3. BritishAustraliainformal

    A good-looking woman.

verb

  1. transitive

    To separate items into different categories according to certain criteria that determine their sorts.

  2. transitive

    To arrange into some sequence, usually numerically, alphabetically or chronologically.

  3. intransitive

    To suit; to fit; to be in accord; to harmonize.

  4. transitive

    To conjoin; to put together in distribution; to class.

  5. intransitive

    To join or associate with others, especially with others of the same kind or species; to agree.

  6. transitive

    To geld.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
A1 · Beginner (estimated)
Frequency
Very Common
Typical Use
Varies by meaning

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: A person evaluated in a certain way.

Used this way, sort is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in everyday conversation and social media or informal writing contexts.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Casual
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
Playful
Usage feel
Casual and conversational

Where it naturally appears

  • Everyday conversation
  • Social media/informal writing

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

More ways to use sort

  • “What sort of person is he?”noun
  • “She wore a sort of magenta dress.”noun

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

Particular

different sortright sort

Other combinations

some sortbetter sort

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Inflected forms

Grammatical variations of the same word.

  • sortingnounInflected form

    An operation that segregates items into groups according to a specified criterion.

  • sorternounInflected form

    A clerk who sorts things (as letters at the post office).

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • sort programnounCompound term

    A utility program that sorts data items.

  • sort outverbCompound term

    Arrange or order by classes or categories.

  • sort ofadverbCompound term

    To some (great or small) extent.

  • sorting algorithmnounCompound term

    An algorithm for sorting a list.

  • sorting programnounCompound term

    A utility program that sorts data items.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: to separate items into different categories according to certain criteria that determine their sorts

assortRaresort outsieveseparatescreen out

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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.