- present participle of sort.
sorting
Americannoun
-
sortings
plural
-
The process by which sediment particles that have a certain characteristic, such as a given shape or grain size, are separated from other associated particles by an active agent of transportation, such as wind, a stream, or a glacier.
-
A measure of the degree to which this process has occurred within a body of sediment. Wind-blown sediments are usually well-sorted because only a small range of grain sizes can be lifted by a particular wind velocity. Glacially derived sediments are usually poorly sorted because of the great range of particle sizes that are picked up by a moving glacier.
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of sorting
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
We spent many weekends sorting through all the photo albums and loose photos we’d amassed or inherited, tossing the duplicate pictures and trashing my dad’s slides that were impossible to view easily.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 8, 2026
Official accounts ignore a cost every household pays: the time spent sorting.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 7, 2026
It was viewed as a critical tool for sorting through vast quantities of information, the people said.
From BBC ● Oct. 5, 2026
One of its TV commercials has it sorting the user’s emails to prioritize “what’s important,” placing a carpool schedule on the family calendar, ordering school supplies and turning on her stereo for a house party.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 2, 2026
Beside me, Louise went to work, sorting through the handkerchiefs for the one embroidered with violets.
From "Secrets at Sea" by Richard Peck
Some of the sortings are heartening: There are more self-made men than born-rich kids in the top 50, and the self-made billionaires’ total wealth is bigger.
From Slate ● Nov. 18, 2013
She could get a white muslin and a white cambric, which, with different sortings of ribbons, served her for all dress-occasions.
From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 by Various
She could get a white muslin and a white cambric, which, with different sortings of ribbons, served her for all dress occasions.
From Household Papers and Stories by Harriet Beecher Stowe
These responded to every properly-modulated thought wave passing through them and made the same careful sortings as a human cell absorbing matter from the world.
From Cerebrum by Lloyd Birmingham
From this year—1851—date the earliest letters preserved in the series of thirty-four boxes which contain the sortings of his vast correspondence.
From The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Volume 1 by Stephen Lucius Gwynn
Random Word
Spin the wheel and learn a new word!
Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
