Definify.com

Webster 1913 Edition

Category

Cat′e-go-ry

,

Noun.

;

pl.

Categories

(#)

.

[L.

categoria

, Gr. [GREEK], fr. [GREEK] to accuse, affirm, predicate; [GREEK] down, against + [GREEK] to harrangue, assert, fr. [GREEK] assembly.]

1.

(Logic.)

One of the highest classes to which the objects of knowledge or thought can be reduced, and by which they can be arranged in a system; an ultimate or undecomposable conception; a predicament.

The

categories

or predicaments – the former a Greek word, the latter its literal translation in the Latin language – were intended by Aristotle and his followers as an enumeration of all things capable of being named; an enumeration by the

summa genera

i.e., the most extensive classes into which things could be distributed.

J. S. Mill.

2.

Class; also, state, condition, or predicament;

as, we are both in the same

category

.

There is in modern literature a whole class of writers standing within the same

category

.

De Quincey.

Webster 1828 Edition

Category

CATEGORY

,

Noun.

In logic, a series or order of all the predicates or attributes contained under a genus. The school philosophers distributed all the objects of our thoughts and ideas into genera or classes. Aristotle made ten categories,

viz.

Substance, quantity, quality, relation, action, passion, time, place, situation and habit.