different between category vs classification

For information about Wiktionary categories, see Wiktionary:Categorization.

English

Etymology

Late Middle English, borrowed from French catégorie, from Middle French categorie, from Late Latin cat?goria (“class of predicables”), from Ancient Greek ????????? (kat?goría, “head of predicables”). Doublet of categoria.

Pronunciation

• (General American, Canada) IPA^(key): /?kæt?????i/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?kæt??(?)?i/
• (General New Zealand) IPA^(key): /?k?t??(?)?i/, /?k?t???o??i/
• Hyphenation: cat?e?go?ry, cat?e?gory

Noun

category (plural categories)

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

   • 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.

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.

Synonyms

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

Hyponyms

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

Further reading

• category in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• category in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

English

Etymology

Borrowed from French classification

Pronunciation

• (US) IPA^(key): /?klæs?f??ke???n/
• Rhymes: -e???n

Noun

classification (countable and uncountable, plural classifications)

1. The act of forming into a class or classes; a distribution into groups, as classes, orders, families, etc., according to some common relations or attributes.
   • 1997: Chris Horrocks, Introducing Foucault, page 69 (Totem Books, Icon Books; ?ISBN

     I’m using mathesis — a universal science of measurement and order …
     And there is also taxinomia a principle of 'classification' and ordered tabulation.
     Knowledge replaced universal resemblance with finite differences. History was arrested and turned into tables …
     Western reason had entered the age of judgement.

Derived terms

• classification scheme
• classification yard

Related terms

• class
• classic
• classify
• category
• categorize
• segment

Translations

Further reading

• classification in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• classification in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• classification at OneLook Dictionary Search

French

Etymology

classe +? -ification

Pronunciation

Noun

classification f (plural classifications)

1. classification

Further reading

• “classification” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).