By aventure, or sort, or cas [chance]. --Chaucer.
Let blockish Ajax draw The sort to fight with Hector.
--Shak.
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.
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.
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.