Adjacent Words

Class definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

CLASS, n.
1. An order or rank of persons; a number of persons in society, supposed to have some resemblance or equality, in rank, education, property, talents, and the like; as in the phrase, all classes of men in society.
The readers of poetry may be distinguished into three classes, according to their capacity of judging.
2. A number of students in a college or school, of the same standing, or pursuing the same studies. In colleges, the students entering or becoming members the same year, and pursuing the same studies. In academies and schools, the pupils who learn the same lesson, and recite together. In some cases, students of different standings, pursuing the same studies and reciting together, or attending the same professor, or the same course of lectures.
3. Scientific division or arrangement; a set of beings or things, having something in common, or ranged under a common denomination. Hence in zoology, animals are divided into classes; as quadrupeds, fowls, fishes, etc. So in botany, plants are arranged in classes. Classes are natural or artificial; natural, when founded on natural relations, or resemblances; artificial, when formed arbitrarily, for want of a complete knowledge of natural relations.
CLASS, v.t.
1. To arrange in a class or classes; to arrange in sets, or ranks, according to some method founded on natural distinctions; to place together, or in one division, men or things which have or are supposed to have something in common.
2. To place in ranks or divisions students that are pursuing the same studies; to form into a class or classes.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: a collection of things sharing a common attribute; "there are two classes of detergents" [syn: class, category, family]
2: a body of students who are taught together; "early morning classes are always sleepy" [syn: class, form, grade, course]
3: people having the same social, economic, or educational status; "the working class"; "an emerging professional class" [syn: class, stratum, social class, socio-economic class]
4: education imparted in a series of lessons or meetings; "he took a course in basket weaving"; "flirting is not unknown in college classes" [syn: course, course of study, course of instruction, class]
5: a league ranked by quality; "he played baseball in class D for two years"; "Princeton is in the NCAA Division 1-AA" [syn: class, division]
6: a body of students who graduate together; "the class of '97"; "she was in my year at Hoehandle High" [syn: class, year]
7: (biology) a taxonomic group containing one or more orders
8: elegance in dress or behavior; "she has a lot of class" v
1: arrange or order by classes or categories; "How would you classify these pottery shards--are they prehistoric?" [syn: classify, class, sort, assort, sort out, separate]

Merriam Webster's

I. noun Usage: often attributive Etymology: French classe, from Latin classis group called to military service, fleet, class; perhaps akin to Latin calare to call — more at low Date: 1602 1. a. a body of students meeting regularly to study the same subject b. the period during which such a body meets c. a course of instruction d. a body of students or alumni whose year of graduation is the same 2. a. a group sharing the same economic or social status <the working class> b. social rank; especially high social rank c. high quality ; elegance <a hotel with class> 3. a group, set, or kind sharing common attributes: as a. a major category in biological taxonomy ranking above the order and below the phylum or division b. a collection of adjacent and discrete or continuous values of a random variable c. set 21 4. a division or rating based on grade or quality 5. the best of its kind <the class of the league> 6. a data type in object-oriented programming that consists of a group of objects with the same properties and behaviors and that is arranged in a hierarchy with other such data types — compare object II. transitive verb Date: 1705 classify

Oxford Reference Dictionary

n. & v. --n. 1 any set of persons or things grouped together, or graded or differentiated from others esp. by quality (first class; economy class). 2 a a division or order of society (upper class; professional classes). b a caste system, a system of social classes. c (the classes) archaic the rich or educated. 3 colloq. distinction or high quality in appearance, behaviour, etc.; stylishness. 4 a a group of students or pupils taught together. b the occasion when they meet. c their course of instruction. 5 US all the college or school students of the same standing or graduating in a given year (the class of 1990). 6 (in conscripted armies) all the recruits of a given year (the 1950 class). 7 Brit. a division of candidates according to merit in an examination. 8 Biol. a grouping of organisms, the next major rank below a division or phylum. --v.tr. assign to a class or category. Phrases and idioms: class-conscious aware of and reacting to social divisions or one's place in a system of social class. class-consciousness this awareness. class-list Brit. a list of candidates in an examination with the class achieved by each. class war conflict between social classes. in a class of (or on) its (or one's) own unequalled. no class colloq. lacking quality or distinction. Etymology: L classis assembly

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Class Class, v. i. To grouped or classed. The genus or famiky under which it classes. --Tatham.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Class Class (kl[.a]s), n. [F. classe, fr. L. classis class, collection, fleet; akin to Gr. klh^sis a calling, kalei^n to call, E. claim, haul.] 1. A group of individuals ranked together as possessing common characteristics; as, the different classes of society; the educated class; the lower classes. 2. A number of students in a school or college, of the same standing, or pursuing the same studies. 3. A comprehensive division of animate or inanimate objects, grouped together on account of their common characteristics, in any classification in natural science, and subdivided into orders, families, tribes, genera, etc. 4. A set; a kind or description, species or variety. She had lost one class energies. --Macaulay. 5. (Methodist Church) One of the sections into which a church or congregation is divided, and which is under the supervision of a class leader. Class of a curve (Math.), the kind of a curve as expressed by the number of tangents that can be drawn from any point to the curve. A circle is of the second class. Class meeting (Methodist Church), a meeting of a class under the charge of a class leader, for counsel and relegious instruction.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Class Class, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Classed; p. pr. & vb. n. Classing.] [Cf. F. classer. See Class, n.] 1. To arrange in classes; to classify or refer to some class; as, to class words or passages. Note: In scientific arrangement, to classify is used instead of to class. --Dana. 2. To divide into classes, as students; to form into, or place in, a class or classes.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

(classes, classing, classed) Frequency: The word is one of the 700 most common words in English. 1. A class is a group of pupils or students who are taught together. He had to spend about six months in a class with younger students... Reducing class sizes should be a top priority. N-COUNT 2. A class is a course of teaching in a particular subject. He acquired a law degree by taking classes at night... I go to dance classes here in New York. = lesson N-COUNT: oft n N 3. If you do something in class, you do it during a lesson in school. There is lots of reading in class. N-UNCOUNT: in N 4. The students in a school or university who finish their course in a particular year are often referred to as the class of that year. These two members of Yale's Class of '57 never miss a reunion. N-SING: N of date 5. Class refers to the division of people in a society into groups according to their social status. ...the relationship between social classes... ...the characteristics of the British class structure. N-VAR see also chattering classes, middle class, upper class, working class 6. A class of things is a group of them with similar characteristics. ...the division of the stars into six classes of brightness. N-COUNT: usu N of n 7. If someone or something is classed as a particular thing, they are regarded as belonging to that group of things. Since the birds inter-breed they cannot be classed as different species... I class myself as an ordinary working person... I would class my garden as medium in size... Malaysia wants to send back refugees classed as economic migrants. VERB: be V-ed as n/adj, V pron-refl as n, V n as adj/n, V-ed 8. If you say that someone or something has class, you mean that they are elegant and sophisticated. (INFORMAL) He's got the same style off the pitch as he has on it–sheer class. N-UNCOUNT [approval] 9. see also business class, first-class, second-class, third-class, top-class, world-class 10. If someone is in a class of their own, they have more of a particular skill or quality than anyone else. If something is in a class of its own, it is better than any other similar thing. As a player, he was in a class of his own. PHRASE: usu v-link PHR

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

I. n. 1. Rank or order (of persons). 2. Set (as of pupils pursuing the same studies). 3. Scientific division (of animate or inanimate objects, including orders, genera, and species), kind. sort. 4. Category, division, head, group, collection. II. v. a. Arrange, rank, range, classify, dispose, distribute, form into classes.

Moby Thesaurus

account, adherents, advantageousness, agreeableness, allot, alphabetize, analyze, animal kingdom, antonomasia, appraise, appreciate, arrange, ashram, assembly, assess, assign, assort, auspiciousness, bearing, beneficialness, benevolence, benignity, binomial nomenclature, biosystematics, biosystematy, biotype, birth, blood, body, bracket, branch, brand, break down, breed, breeding, brethren, brood, caliber, call, caste, catalog, categorize, category, church, churchgoers, clan, classification, classify, codify, cogency, colony, color, commonwealth, commune, communion, community, condition, confession, congregation, consider, deme, denomination, descent, description, desert, digest, discernment, disciples, distinction, divide, division, domain, echelon, economic class, elegance, endogamous group, estate, estimate, evaluate, excellence, expedience, extended family, extraction, factor, fairness, faith, family, favorableness, feather, figure, file, fineness, first-rateness, flock, fold, folk, followers, footing, form, form an estimate, gauge, genotype, genre, gens, genus, give an appreciation, glossology, goodliness, goodness, grace, grade, grain, group, grouping, guess, head, heading, healthiness, helpfulness, hierarchy, hold, house, identify, ilk, importance, index, ism, judge, kidney, kin, kind, kindness, kingdom, kinship group, label, laity, laymen, league, level, line, lineage, list, make an estimation, mark, matriclan, measure, merit, minyan, moiety, nation, nature, niceness, nomenclature, nonclerics, nonordained persons, nuclear family, onomastics, onomatology, order, orismology, parish, parishioners, part, patriclan, pedigree, people, persuasion, phratria, phratry, phyle, phylum, pigeonhole, place, place-names, place-naming, plant kingdom, pleasantness, polyonymy, position, power structure, precedence, predicament, presence, prestige, prize, profitableness, quality, race, range, rank, rate, rating, realm, reckon, refinement, regard, rewardingness, rubric, savoir faire, school, score, sect, section, seculars, separate, sept, series, set, settlement, sheep, sift, skillfulness, social class, society, sort, sort out, soundness, species, sphere, stage, stamp, standing, station, status, stem, stirps, stock, strain, stratum, stripe, style, subcaste, subclass, subdivide, subdivision, subfamily, subgenus, subgroup, subkingdom, suborder, subspecies, subtribe, superclass, superfamily, superiority, superorder, superspecies, systematics, tabulate, taste, taxonomy, terminology, thrash out, tier, title, toponymy, totem, track, tribe, trinomialism, type, usefulness, validity, valuate, value, variety, virtue, virtuousness, weigh, wholeness, winnow, worth, year