category
Americannoun
plural
categories-
any general or comprehensive division; a class.
-
a classificatory division in any field of knowledge, as a phylum or any of its subdivisions in biology.
-
Metaphysics.
-
(in Aristotelian philosophy) any of the fundamental modes of existence, such as substance, quality, and quantity, as determined by analysis of the different possible kinds of predication.
-
(in Kantian philosophy) any of the fundamental principles of the understanding, as the principle of causation.
-
any classification of terms that is ultimate and not susceptible to further analysis.
-
-
Also called Guggenheim. (used with a singular verb) categories. a game in which a key word and a list of categories, as dogs, automobiles, or rivers, are selected, and in which each player writes down a word in each category that begins with each of the letters of the key word, the player writing down the most words within a time limit being declared the winner.
-
Mathematics. a type of mathematical object, as a set, group, or metric space, together with a set of mappings from such an object to other objects of the same type.
-
Grammar. part of speech.
noun
-
a class or group of things, people, etc, possessing some quality or qualities in common; a division in a system of classification
-
metaphysics any one of the most basic classes into which objects and concepts can be analysed
-
-
(in the philosophy of Aristotle) any one of ten most fundamental modes of being, such as quantity, quality, and substance
-
(in the philosophy of Kant) one of twelve concepts required by human beings to interpret the empirical world
-
any set of objects, concepts, or expressions distinguished from others within some logical or linguistic theory by the intelligibility of a specific set of statements concerning them See also category mistake
-
Etymology
Origin of category
First recorded in 1580–90; from Late Latin catēgoria, from Greek katēgoría “accusation” (in logic, “predication”), from katēgoreîn “to accuse, affirm,” from kata- cata- + agoreúein “to speak before the agora 1 ” + -ia -y 3
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.
They have come so tantalizingly close to so many golds that they now hold a decisive lead in another category: silver medals.
Budget analysts have identified five categories that are driving up city spending: rental assistance, public assistance, the school system, city employee overtime and payments to the state-operated transit system.
What first seemed like an unusual case now appears to be part of a broader category of failed supernovae that quietly produce black holes.
From Science Daily
In more recent years, a category of so-called “midlevel” jobs took off.
From Barron's
The latest inflation data show these categories are off to a hot start in 2026 as well.
From MarketWatch
Definitions 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.
