Categories

1 definition found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Category \Cat"e*go*ry\, n.; pl. {Categories}. [L. categoria, Gr.
     ?, fr. ? to accuse, affirm, predicate; ? down, against + ? to
     harrangue, assert, fr. ? 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.
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              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.
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     2. Class; also, state, condition, or predicament; as, we are
        both in the same category.
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              There is in modern literature a whole class of
              writers standing within the same category. --De
                                                    Quincey.
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