What is "sort"

Sort \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.

Sort \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.

   Usage: 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 \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 \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.

late 14c., "group of people, animals, etc.; kind or variety of person or animal," from Old French sorte "class, kind," from Latin sortem (nominative sors) "lot; fate, destiny; share, portion; rank, category; sex, class, oracular response, prophecy," from PIE root *ser- (3) "to line up" (cognates: Latin serere "to arrange, attach, join;" see series). The sense evolution in Vulgar Latin is from "what is allotted to one by fate," to "fortune, condition," to "rank, class, order." Later (mid-15c.) "group, class, or category of items; kind or variety of thing; pattern, design." Out of sorts "not in usual good condition" is attested from 1620s, with literal sense of "out of stock."

mid-14c., "to arrange according to type or quality," from Old French sortir "allot, sort, assort," from Latin sortiri "draw lots, divide, choose," from sors (see sort (n.)). In some senses, the verb is a shortened form of assort.

Etymology 1 n. A general type. Etymology 2

vb. 1 (senseid en separate according to certain criteria)(context transitive English) To separate according to certain criterion. 2 (senseid en arrange into some sort of order)(context transitive English) To arrange into some order, especially numerically, alphabetically or chronologically. 3 (senseid en fix a problem)(context British English) To fix a problem, to handle a task; to sort out. 4 (context transitive English) To conjoin; to put together in distribution; to class. 5 (context intransitive English) To join or associate with others, especially with others of the same kind or species; to agree. 6 (context intransitive English) To suit; to fit; to be in accord; to harmonize. 7 (context transitive obsolete English) To conform; to adapt; to accommodate. 8 (context transitive obsolete English) To choose from a number; to select; to cull.

1. n. a category of things distinguished by some common characteristic or quality; "sculpture is a form of art"; "what kinds of desserts are there?" [syn: kind, form, variety]

2. an approximate definition or example; "she wore a sort of magenta dress"; "she served a creamy sort of dessert thing"

3. a person of a particular character or nature; "what sort of person is he?"; "he's a good sort"

4. an operation that segregates items into groups according to a specified criterion; "the bottleneck in mail delivery it the process of sorting" [syn: sorting]

1. v. examine in order to test suitability; "screen these samples"; "screen the job applicants" [syn: screen, screen out, sieve]

2. arrange or order by classes or categories; "How would you classify these pottery shards--are they prehistoric?" [syn: classify, class, assort, sort out, separate]

Sort may refer to:

• Sorting, any process of arranging items in sequence or in sets
  • Sorting algorithm, any algorithm for arranging elements in lists
  • Sort (Unix), a Unix utility which sorts the lines of a file
  • Sort (C++), a function in the C++ Standard Template Library
• SORT (journal), peer-reviewed open access scientific journal
• Sort (mathematical logic), a domain in a many-sorted structure
• Sort (typesetting), a piece of metal type
• Sort, Lleida, a town in Catalonia
• Special Operations Response Team, a group trained to respond to disturbances at a correctional facility
• Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty, a treaty between the United States and the Russian Federation
• Symantec Operations Readiness Tools, a web-based suite of services from Symantec Corporation

sort is a generic function in the C++ Standard Library for doing comparison sorting. The function originated in the Standard Template Library (STL).

The specific sorting algorithm is not mandated by the language standard and may vary across implementations, but the worst-case asymptotic complexity of the function is specified: a call to must perform comparisons when applied to a range of elements.

In Unix-like operating systems, sort is a standard command line program that prints the lines of its input or concatenation of all files listed in its argument list in sorted order. Sorting is done based on one or more sort keys extracted from each line of input. By default, the entire input is taken as sort key. Blank space is the default field separator.

The "-r" flag will reverse the sort order.

In typesetting by hand compositing, a sort or type is a piece of type representing a particular letter or symbol, cast from a matrix mould and assembled with other sorts bearing additional letters into lines of type to make up a form from which a page is printed.

From the invention of movable type up to the invention of hot metal typesetting essentially all printed text was created by selecting sorts from a type case and assembling them line by line into a form used to print a page. When the form was no longer needed all of the type had to be sorted back into the correct slots in the type case in a very time-consuming process called "distributing". This sorting process led to the individual pieces being called sorts. It is often claimed to be the root of expressions such as "out of sorts" and "wrong sort", although this connection is disputed.

During the hot metal typesetting era, printing equipment used matrices to cast type as needed during the typesetting process. The popular Linotype cast entire lines of text at once rather than individual sorts, while the less popular competitor Monotype still cast the sorts individually. Later, when phototypesetting replaced hot metal typesetting, sorts disappeared entirely from the mainstream printing process.

SORT or Statistics and Operations Research Transactions is a peer-reviewed open access scientific journal that publishes papers related to statistics. It is published by the Institut d'Estadística de Catalunya, the statistical office of Catalonia, in English with a brief summary in Catalan.

The journal was established in 2003, when it replaced the journal Qüestiió (Quaderns d'Estadística i Investigació Operativa, 1977-2002). It publishes two issues each year, and is available online as open access.