sort of

S s

Transcription

- US Pronunciation
- US IPA
- UK Pronunciation
- UK IPA
- [sawrt uhv, ov]
- /sɔrt ʌv, ɒv/
- /sɔːt əv/

- US Pronunciation
- US IPA
- [sawrt uhv, ov]
- /sɔrt ʌv, ɒv/

Definitions of sort of words

noun sort of a particular kind, species, variety, class, or group, distinguished by a common character or nature: to develop a new sort of painting; nice people, of course, but not really our sort. 1
noun sort of character, quality, or nature: young people of a nice sort. 1
noun sort of an example of something that is undistinguished or barely adequate: He is a sort of poet. 1
noun sort of manner, fashion, or way: We spoke in this sort for several minutes. 1
noun sort of Printing. any of the individual characters making up a font of type. characters of a particular font that are rarely used. 1
noun sort of an instance of sorting. 1

See all 20 definitions of sort of

Information block about the term

Origin of sort of

First appearance:

before 1200

One of the 9% oldest English words

1200-50; (noun) Middle English < Middle French sorte < Medieval Latin sort- (stem of sors) kind, allotted status or portion, lot, Latin: orig., voter's lot; (v.) Middle English sorten to allot, arrange, assort (< Middle French sortir) < Latin sortīrī to draw lots, derivative of sors; later senses influenced by the noun and by assort

Historical Comparancy

Parts of speech for Sort of

noun

adjective

verb

adverb

pronoun

preposition

conjunction

determiner

exclamation

Full grammatical hierarchy of Sort of

sort of popularity

A common word. It’s meaning is known to most children of preschool age. About 93% of English native speakers know the meaning and use the word.

Most Europeans know this English word. The frequency of it’s usage is somewhere between "mom" and "screwdriver".

sort of usage trend in Literature

This diagram is provided by Google Ngram Viewer

Synonyms for sort of

adv sort of

a little — small in size; not big; not large; tiny: a little desk in the corner of the room.
averagely — a quantity, rating, or the like that represents or approximates an arithmetic mean: Her golf average is in the 90s. My average in science has gone from B to C this semester.
fairly — in a fair manner; justly or honestly; impartially.
in part — a portion or division of a whole that is separate or distinct; piece, fragment, fraction, or section; constituent: the rear part of the house; to glue the two parts together.
in reason — a basis or cause, as for some belief, action, fact, event, etc.: the reason for declaring war.

adverb sort of

bearably — In a bearable manner.
insignificantly — Of such extremely small quantity or degree that it is not worth measuring.

All 9 Synonyms of sort of