The meaning of word category

For information about Wiktionary categories, see Wiktionary:Categorization.

English[edit]

Etymology[edit]

Late Middle English, borrowed from French catégorie, from Middle French categorie, from Late Latin catēgoria (“class of predicables”), from Ancient Greek κατηγορία (katēgoría, “head of predicables”). Doublet of categoria.

Pronunciation[edit]

• (General American, Canada) IPA^(key): /ˈkætəˌɡɔɹi/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈkætɪɡ(ə)ɹi/
• (New Zealand) IPA^(key): /ˈkɛtɘɡ(ɘ)ɹi/, /ˈkɛtɘˌɡoːɹi/
• Hyphenation: cat‧e‧go‧ry,

cat‧e‧gory

Noun[edit]

category (plural categories)

1. A group, often named or numbered, to which items are assigned based on similarity or defined criteria.

   • 1988, Andrew Radford, Transformational grammar: a first course, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 51:

     The traditional way of describing the similarities and differences between constituents is to say that they belong to categories of various types. Thus, words like boy, girl, man, woman, etc. are traditionally said to belong to the category of Nouns, whereas words like a, the, this, and that are traditionally said to belong to the category of Determiners.

   This steep and dangerous climb belongs to the most difficult category.

   I wouldn’t put this book in the same category as the author’s first novel.

2. (mathematics) A collection of objects, together with a transitively closed collection of composable arrows between them, such that every object has an identity arrow, and such that arrow composition is associative.

   • 1995, Michael Barr; Charles Wells, Category Theory for Computing Science‎^[1], 2nd edition, University Press, Cambridge, Great Britain: Prentice Hall, §2.8.9, page 46:

     The use of the word ‘factor’ shows the explicit intention of categorists to work with functions in an algebraic manner: a category is an algebra of functions.

   One well-known category has sets as objects and functions as arrows.

   Just as a monoid consists of an underlying set with a binary operation «on top of it» which is closed, associative and with an identity, a category consists of an underlying digraph with an arrow composition operation «on top of it» which is transitively closed, associative, and with an identity at each object. In fact, a category‘s composition operation, when restricted to a single one of its objects, turns that object’s set of arrows (which would all be loops) into a monoid.

Synonyms[edit]

• (group to which items are assigned): class, family, genus, group, kingdom, order, phylum, race, tribe, type
• See also Thesaurus:class

Hyponyms[edit]

Derived terms[edit]

[edit]

Translations[edit]

Further reading[edit]

• category in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
• “category”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Noun	1.	category — a collection of things sharing a common attribute; «there are two classes of detergents» substitution class, paradigm — the class of all items that can be substituted into the same position (or slot) in a grammatical sentence (are in paradigmatic relation with one another) brass family — (music) the family of brass instruments violin family — (music) the family of bowed stringed instruments stamp — a type or class; «more men of his stamp are needed» declension — a class of nouns or pronouns or adjectives in Indo-European languages having the same (or very similar) inflectional forms; «the first declension in Latin» conjugation — a class of verbs having the same inflectional forms denomination — a class of one kind of unit in a system of numbers or measures or weights or money; «he flashed a fistful of bills of large denominations» histocompatibility complex — a family of fifty or more genes on the sixth human chromosome that code for proteins on the surfaces of cells and that play a role in the immune response superphylum — (biology) a taxonomic group ranking between a phylum and below a class or subclass
	2.	category — a general concept that marks divisions or coordinations in a conceptual scheme kind, sort, form, variety — a category of things distinguished by some common characteristic or quality; «sculpture is a form of art»; «what kinds of desserts are there?» pigeonhole — a specific (often simplistic) category rubric — category name; «it is usually discussed under the rubric of `functional obesity'» way — a general category of things; used in the expression `in the way of’; «they didn’t have much in the way of clothing»

Based on WordNet 3.0, Farlex clipart collection. © 2003-2012 Princeton University, Farlex Inc.

category

noun class, grouping, heading, head, order, sort, list, department, type, division, section, rank, grade, classification The entries were organised into six different catagories.

Collins Thesaurus of the English Language – Complete and Unabridged 2nd Edition. 2002 © HarperCollins Publishers 1995, 2002

category

noun

A subdivision of a larger group:

The American Heritage® Roget’s Thesaurus. Copyright © 2013, 2014 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Translations

• Defenition of the word category

  • A group to which items are assigned based on similarity or defined criteria.
  • a general concept that marks divisions or coordinations in a conceptual scheme
  • a collection of things sharing a common attribute; «there are two classes of detergents»
  • a collection of things sharing a common attribute

Synonyms for the word category

• • class
  • family
  • group
  • grouping
  • kind
  • sort
  • type

Similar words in the category

• • category
  • category’s

Meronymys for the word category

• • superphylum

Hyponyms for the word category

• • brass family
  • class Diplopoda
  • class Larvacea
  • class Myriapoda
  • conjugation
  • declension
  • denomination
  • Diplopoda
  • form
  • grammatical category
  • histocompatibility complex
  • kind
  • Larvacea
  • Malacostraca
  • Myriapoda
  • paradigm
  • pigeonhole
  • rubric
  • sex
  • sort
  • stamp
  • subclass Malacostraca
  • substitution class
  • syntactic category
  • variety
  • violin family
  • way
  • woodwind family

Hypernyms for the word category

• • accumulation
  • aggregation
  • assemblage
  • collection
  • concept
  • conception
  • construct

See other words

• • What is cashier
  • The definition of cash flow
  • The interpretation of the word cash desk
  • What is meant by carving knife
  • The lexical meaning cartwright
  • The dictionary meaning of the word carry
  • The grammatical meaning of the word carpenter
  • Meaning of the word carol
  • Literal and figurative meaning of the word carnivore
  • The origin of the word catenary
  • Synonym for the word caterpillar
  • Antonyms for the word catfight
  • Homonyms for the word cathode
  • Hyponyms for the word catnip
  • Holonyms for the word catwalk
  • Hypernyms for the word cauldron
  • Proverbs and sayings for the word caulk
  • Translation of the word in other languages causerie

Last Updated:
10 Apr 2023
— Updated example sentences