Sort \Sort\, n. [F. sorl, L. sors, sortis. See Sort kind.]

Chance; lot; destiny. [Obs.]

By aventure, or sort, or cas [chance]. --Chaucer.

Let blockish Ajax draw The sort to fight with Hector. --Shak.

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)
 

Sort \Sort\, n. [F. sorie (cf. It. sorta, sorte), from L. sors, sorti, a lot, part, probably akin to serere to connect. See Series, and cf. Assort, Consort, Resort, Sorcery, Sort lot.]

1. A kind or species; any number or collection of individual persons or things characterized by the same or like qualities; a class or order; as, a sort of men; a sort of horses; a sort of trees; a sort of poems.

2. Manner; form of being or acting.

Which for my part I covet to perform, In sort as through the world I did proclaim. --Spenser.

Flowers, in such sort worn, can neither be smelt nor seen well by those that wear them. --Hooker.

I'll deceive you in another sort. --Shak.

To Adam in what sort Shall I appear? --Milton.

I shall not be wholly without praise, if in some sort I have copied his style. --Dryden.

3. Condition above the vulgar; rank. [Obs.]

--Shak.

4. A chance group; a company of persons who happen to be together; a troop; also, an assemblage of animals. [Obs.]

``A sort of shepherds.'' --Spenser. ``A sort of steers.'' --Spenser. ``A sort of doves.'' --Dryden. ``A sort of rogues.'' --Massinger.

A boy, a child, and we a sort of us, Vowed against his voyage. --Chapman.

5. A pair; a set; a suit. --Johnson.

6. pl. (Print.) Letters, figures, points, marks, spaces, or quadrats, belonging to a case, separately considered.

Out of sorts (Print.), with some letters or sorts of type deficient or exhausted in the case or font; hence, colloquially, out of order; ill; vexed; disturbed.

To run upon sorts (Print.), to use or require a greater number of some particular letters, figures, or marks than the regular proportion, as, for example, in making an index.

Syn: Kind; species; rank; condition.

Usage: Sort, Kind. Kind originally denoted things of the same family, or bound together by some natural affinity; and hence, a class. Sort signifies that which constitutes a particular lot of parcel, not implying necessarily the idea of affinity, but of mere assemblage. the two words are now used to a great extent interchangeably, though sort (perhaps from its original meaning of lot) sometimes carries with it a slight tone of disparagement or contempt, as when we say, that sort of people, that sort of language.

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)
 

Sort \Sort\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Sorted; p. pr. & vb. n. Sorting.]

1. To separate, and place in distinct classes or divisions, as things having different qualities; as, to sort cloths according to their colors; to sort wool or thread according to its fineness.

Rays which differ in refrangibility may be parted and sorted from one another. --Sir I. Newton.

2. To reduce to order from a confused state. --Hooker.

3. To conjoin; to put together in distribution; to class.

Shellfish have been, by some of the ancients, compared and sorted with insects. --Bacon.

She sorts things present with things past. --Sir J. Davies.

4. To choose from a number; to select; to cull.

That he may sort out a worthy spouse. --Chapman.

I'll sort some other time to visit you. --Shak.

5. To conform; to adapt; to accommodate. [R.]

I pray thee, sort thy heart to patience. --Shak.

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)
 

Sort \Sort\, v. i.

1. To join or associate with others, esp. with others of the same kind or species; to agree.

Nor do metals only sort and herd with metals in the earth, and minerals with minerals. --Woodward.

The illiberality of parents towards children makes them base, and sort with any company. --Bacon.

2. To suit; to fit; to be in accord; to harmonize.

They are happy whose natures sort with their vocations. --Bacon.

Things sort not to my will. --herbert.

I can not tell you precisely how they sorted. --Sir W. Scott.

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)