sortal
sortal adjective: of or pertaining to a sort, or kind.
Adjective
sortal (not comparable)
- Of or pertaining to a sort, or kind.
- But, it being evident that things are ranked under names into sorts or species, only as they agree to certain abstract ideas, to which we have annexed those names, the essence of each genus, or sort, comes to be nothing but that abstract idea which the general, or sortal (if I may have leave so to...1690, John Locke, “Chapter III: Of General Terms”, in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Book III
- Having the character of a sortal.
- The possession of sortal concepts is a prerequisite for philosophers like Wiggins or Lowe in determining the nature and extent of our referential capacities.2008 January 8, John E. Sarnecki, “Sortals for Dummies”, in Erkenntnis, volume 69, number 2, →DOI
Noun
sortal (plural sortals)
- A type of universal that defines a particular sort of object
- And central to this notion is the distinction, among semantic types of g-words, between sortals on the one hand and non-sortal general-character-specifiers on the other1974, P.F. Strawson, Subject and Predicate in Logic and Grammar, →ISBN, page 135
Forms of sortal
| plural | sortals |
|---|
Origin of sortal
From sort + -al. Coined by John Locke in 1690 in his An Essay Concerning Human Understanding.
Words formed from sortal
- nonsortal
- sortalism
- sortalist
- sortalize
Questions about sortal
- What does sortal mean?
- Sortal means of or pertaining to a sort, or kind.
- What part of speech is sortal?
- Sortal can be an adjective or a noun.
Words near sortal in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: sortal (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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