from
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
Category \Cat"e*go*ry\, n.; pl. {Categories}. [L. categoria, Gr.
?, fr. ? to accuse, affirm, predicate; ? down, against + ? to
harrangue, assert, fr. ? assembly.]
1. (Logic.) One of the highest classes to which the objects
of knowledge or thought can be reduced, and by which they
can be arranged in a system; an ultimate or undecomposable
conception; a predicament.
[1913 Webster]
The categories or predicaments -- the former a Greek
word, the latter its literal translation in the
Latin language -- were intended by Aristotle and his
followers as an enumeration of all things capable of
being named; an enumeration by the summa genera
i.e., the most extensive classes into which things
could be distributed. --J. S. Mill.
[1913 Webster]
2. Class; also, state, condition, or predicament; as, we are
both in the same category.
[1913 Webster]
There is in modern literature a whole class of
writers standing within the same category. --De
Quincey.
[1913 Webster]