From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Sort \Sort\, n. [F. sorl, L. sors, sortis. See Sort kind.]
Chance; lot; destiny. [Obs.]
[1913 Webster]
By aventure, or sort, or cas [chance]. --Chaucer.
[1913 Webster]
Let blockish Ajax draw
The sort to fight with Hector. --Shak.
[1913 Webster]
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
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.
[1913 Webster]
2. Manner; form of being or acting.
[1913 Webster]
Which for my part I covet to perform,
In sort as through the world I did proclaim.
--Spenser.
[1913 Webster]
Flowers, in such sort worn, can neither be smelt nor
seen well by those that wear them. --Hooker.
[1913 Webster]
I'll deceive you in another sort. --Shak.
[1913 Webster]
To Adam in what sort
Shall I appear? --Milton.
[1913 Webster]
I shall not be wholly without praise, if in some
sort I have copied his style. --Dryden.
[1913 Webster]
3. Condition above the vulgar; rank. [Obs.] --Shak.
[1913 Webster]
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.
[1913 Webster]
A boy, a child, and we a sort of us,
Vowed against his voyage. --Chapman.
[1913 Webster]
5. A pair; a set; a suit. --Johnson.
[1913 Webster]
6. pl. (Print.) Letters, figures, points, marks, spaces, or
quadrats, belonging to a case, separately considered.
[1913 Webster]
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.
[1913 Webster]
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.
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Sort \Sort\, v. i.
1. To join or associate with others, esp. with others of the
same kind or species; to agree.
[1913 Webster]
Nor do metals only sort and herd with metals in the
earth, and minerals with minerals. --Woodward.
[1913 Webster]
The illiberality of parents towards children makes
them base, and sort with any company. --Bacon.
[1913 Webster]
2. To suit; to fit; to be in accord; to harmonize.
[1913 Webster]
They are happy whose natures sort with their
vocations. --Bacon.
[1913 Webster]
Things sort not to my will. --herbert.
[1913 Webster]
I can not tell you precisely how they sorted. --Sir
W. Scott.
[1913 Webster]
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
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.
[1913 Webster]
Rays which differ in refrangibility may be parted
and sorted from one another. --Sir I.
Newton.
[1913 Webster]
2. To reduce to order from a confused state. --Hooker.
[1913 Webster]
3. To conjoin; to put together in distribution; to class.
[1913 Webster]
Shellfish have been, by some of the ancients,
compared and sorted with insects. --Bacon.
[1913 Webster]
She sorts things present with things past. --Sir J.
Davies.
[1913 Webster]
4. To choose from a number; to select; to cull.
[1913 Webster]
That he may sort out a worthy spouse. --Chapman.
[1913 Webster]
I'll sort some other time to visit you. --Shak.
[1913 Webster]
5. To conform; to adapt; to accommodate. [R.]
[1913 Webster]
I pray thee, sort thy heart to patience. --Shak.
[1913 Webster]