Word.ws English Dictionary

of sorts

of sorts prepositional phrase: resembling; similar to; in a way; partially or not entirely.

Prepositional phrase

  1. (idiomatic) Resembling; similar to; in a way; partially or not entirely.
    • He wrote a polite retraction, as an apology of sorts for his harsh words.
    • The Mountain versus the Hound played out entertainingly, with the elder Clegane still outmatching his younger brother pound for pound and blow for blow. Being turned into a walking zombie of sorts didn’t just amplify his strength; it essentially obviated the need to parry blows, as even Sandor...2019 May 12, Alex McLevy, “Westeros faces a disastrous final battle on the penultimate Game of Thrones (newbies)”, in The A.V. Club, archived from the original on 15 May 2019

Questions about of sorts

What does of sorts mean?
Of sorts means resembling; similar to; in a way; partially or not entirely.
What part of speech is of sorts?
Of sorts is a prepositional phrase.

Words near of sorts in the dictionary

  1. of record
  2. of service
  3. of some use
  4. of someone's dreams
  5. of someone's life
  6. of sorts
  7. of that ilk
  8. of the best water
  9. of the century
  10. of the clock
  11. of the colors

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: of sorts (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-of sorts.ogg.

Cite this entry: “of sorts.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/of_sorts. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.