Noun

(countable) A group, collection, category or set sharing characteristics or attributes.

* {{quote-news, year=2011, date=October 1, author=Saj Chowdhury, work=BBC Sport

, title= Wolverhampton 1-2 Newcastle , passage=The Magpies are unbeaten and enjoying their best run since 1994, although few would have thought the class of 2011 would come close to emulating their ancestors.}}

(countable) A social grouping, based on job, wealth, etc. In Britain, society is commonly split into three main classes; upper class, middle class and working class.

* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-28, author=(Joris Luyendijk)

, volume=189, issue=3, page=21, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= Our banks are out of control , passage=Seeing the British establishment struggle with the financial sector is like watching an alcoholic […].  Until 2008 there was denial over what finance had become. […]  But the scandals kept coming, and so we entered stage three – what therapists call "bargaining". A broad section of the political class now recognises the need for change but remains unable to see the necessity of a fundamental overhaul. Instead it offers fixes and patches.}}

(uncountable) The division of society into classes.

(uncountable) Admirable behavior; elegance.

(countable, and, uncountable) A group of students in a regularly scheduled meeting with a teacher.

A series of classes covering a single subject.

(countable) A group of students who commenced or completed their education during a particular year. A school class.

(countable) A category of seats in an airplane, train or other means of mass transportation.

(biology, taxonomy, countable) A rank in the classification of organisms, below phylum and above order; a taxon of that rank.

Best of its kind.

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(mathematics) A collection of sets definable by a shared property.

(military) A group of people subject to be conscripted in the same military draft, or more narrowly those persons actually conscripted in a particular draft.

(programming, object-oriented) A set of objects having the same behavior (but typically differing in state), or a template defining such a set.

One of the sections into which a Methodist church or congregation is divided, supervised by a class leader .

Noun

(lb) The natural world; consisting of all things unaffected by or predating human technology, production and design. e.g. the ecosystem, the natural environment, virgin ground, unmodified species, laws of nature.

* (1800-1859)

*:Nature has caprices which art cannot imitate.

*1891 , (Oscar Wilde), ''(The Decay of Lying)

*:Nature has good intentions, of course, but, as Aristotle once said, she cannot carry them out. When I look at a landscape I cannot help seeing all its defects.

The innate characteristics of a thing. What something will tend by its own constitution, to be or do. Distinct from what might be expected or intended.

*1920 , (Herman Cyril McNeile), , Ch.1:

*:Being by nature of a cheerful disposition, the symptom did not surprise his servant, late private of the same famous regiment, who was laying breakfast in an adjoining room.

*1869 , , :

*:Mark hardly knew whether to believe this or not. He already began to suspect that Roswell was something of a humbug, and though it was not in his nature to form a causeless dislike, he certainly did not feel disposed to like Roswell.

The summary of everything that has to do with biological, chemical and physical states and events in the physical universe.

*(John Milton) (1608-1674)

*:I oft admire / How Nature , wise and frugal, could commit / Such disproportions.

*{{quote-magazine, date=2012-01, author=Robert M. Pringle, volume=100, issue=1, page=31

, magazine=(American Scientist) , title= How to Be Manipulative , passage=As in much of biology, the most satisfying truths in ecology derive from manipulative experimentation. Tinker with nature and quantify how it responds.}}

Conformity to that which is natural, as distinguished from that which is artificial, or forced, or remote from actual experience.

*(William Shakespeare) (c.1564–1616)

*:One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.

Kind, sort; character; quality.

*(John Dryden) (1631-1700)

*:A dispute of this nature caused mischief.

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*:Carried somehow, somewhither, for some reason, on these surging floods, were these travelers, of errand not wholly obvious to their fellows, yet of such sort as to call into query alike the nature of their errand and their own relations.

(lb) Physical constitution or existence; the vital powers; the natural life.

*(William Shakespeare) (c.1564–1616)

*:my days of nature

*(William Shakespeare) (c.1564–1616)

*:Oppressed nature sleeps.

(lb) Natural affection or reverence.

*(Alexander Pope) (1688-1744)

*:Have we not seen / The murdering son ascend his parent's bed, / Through violated nature force his way?