Sort vs Soft - What's the difference?

As nouns the difference between sort and soft

is that sort is kind, type, sort or sort can be fate, destiny, chance while soft is a soft or foolish person; an idiot.

As an adjective soft is

easily giving way under pressure.

As an interjection soft is

(archaic) be quiet; hold; stop; not so fast.

As an adverb soft is

(lb) softly; without roughness or harshness; gently; quietly.

sort

English

Etymology 1

From (etyl) (m), (m), (m) (= Dutch (m), German (m), Danish (m), Swedish (m)), from (etyl) .

Noun

(en noun)

A general type.

*, chapter=1

, title= Mr. Pratt's Patients, chapter=1 , passage=I stumbled along through the young pines and huckleberry bushes. Pretty soon I struck into a sort of path that, I cal'lated, might lead to the road I was hunting for. It twisted and turned, and, the first thing I knew, made a sudden bend around a bunch of bayberry scrub and opened out into a big clear space like a lawn.}}

*{{quote-book, year=1922, author=(Ben Travers), title=(A Cuckoo in the Nest)

, chapter=1 citation , passage=“[…] the awfully hearty sort of Christmas cards that people do send to other people that they don't know at all well. You know. The kind that have mottoes like
Here's rattling good luck and roaring good cheer, / With lashings of food and great hogsheads of beer.

*{{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)

, chapter=17 citation , passage=The face which emerged was not reassuring.

*{{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-14, author= Sam Leith

, volume=189, issue=1, page=37, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= Where the profound meets the profane , passage=Swearing doesn't just mean what we now understand by "dirty words". It is entwined, in social and linguistic history, with the other sort of swearing: vows and oaths.}}

Manner; form of being or acting.

*(Edmund Spenser) (c.1552–1599)

*:Which for my part I covet to perform, / In sort as through the world I did proclaim.

*(Richard Hooker) (1554-1600)

*:Flowers, in such sort worn, can neither be smelt nor seen well by those that wear them.

*(William Shakespeare) (c.1564–1616)

*:I'll deceive you in another sort .

*(John Milton) (1608-1674)

*:To Adam in what sort / Shall I appear?

*(John Dryden) (1631-1700)

*:I shall not be wholly without praise, if in some sort I have copied his style.

*: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. It is easily earned repetition to state that Josephine St. Auban's was a presence not to be concealed.

(lb) Condition above the vulgar; rank.

:(Shakespeare)

(lb) Group, company.

*(Edmund Spenser) (c.1552–1599)

*:a sort of shepherds

*(John Dryden) (1631-1700)

*:a sort of doves

*(Philip Massinger) (1583-1640)

*:a sort of rogues

*(George Chapman) (1559-1634)

*:A boy, a child, and we a sort of us, / Vowed against his voyage.

(lb) A person.

An act of sorting.

(lb) An algorithm for sorting a list of items into a particular sequence.

(lb) A piece of metal type used to print one letter, character, or symbol in a particular size and style.

(lb) Chance; lot; destiny.

*(William Shakespeare)

*:Let blockish Ajax draw / The sort to fight with Hector.

(lb) A pair; a set; a suit.

:(Johnson)

Quotations

* (English Citations of "sort")

Synonyms

* (type) genre, genus, kind, type, variety * (person) character, individual, person, type * (act of sorting) sort-out * (in computing) sort algorithm, sorting algorithm * (typography) glyph, type * See also

Derived terms

* all sorts * allsorts * in sort * out of sorts * sort of * sort out * sorta * bead sort * binary tree sort * blort sort * bogo-sort * bozo sort * bubble sort * bucket sort * cocktail sort * comb sort * counting sort * distribution sort * drunk man sort * gnome sort * heapsort * insertion sort * in-place sort * insertion sort * introsort * introspective sort * library sort * merge sort * mergesort * monkey sort * pigeonhole sort * quicksort * radix sort * selection sort * shell sort * smoothsort * stochastic sort * stupid sort * stooge sort * timsort

Etymology 2

From (etyl)

Verb

(en verb)

(senseid)To separate according to certain criteria.

* Isaac Newton

Rays which differ in refrangibility may be parted and sorted from one another.

(senseid)To arrange into some order, especially numerically, alphabetically or chronologically.

(senseid)(British) To fix a problem, to handle a task; to sort out.

To conjoin; to put together in distribution; to class.

* Francis Bacon

Shellfish have been, by some of the ancients, compared and sorted with insects.

* Sir J. Davies

She sorts things present with things past.

To join or associate with others, especially with others of the same kind or species; to agree.

* Woodward

Nor do metals only sort and herd with metals in the earth, and minerals with minerals.

* Francis Bacon

The illiberality of parents towards children makes them base, and sort with any company.

To suit; to fit; to be in accord; to harmonize.

* Francis Bacon

They are happy whose natures sort with their vocations.

* Sir Walter Scott

I cannot tell ye precisely how they sorted .

(obsolete) To conform; to adapt; to accommodate.

* Shakespeare

I pray thee, sort thy heart to patience.

(obsolete) To choose from a number; to select; to cull.

* Chapman

that he may sort out a worthy spouse

* Shakespeare

I'll sort some other time to visit you.

Usage notes

In British sense “to fix a problem”, often used in the form “I’ll get you sorted,” or “Now that’s sorted,” – in American usage (sort out) is used instead.

Synonyms

* (separate according to certain criteria) categorise/categorize, class, classify, group * (arrange into some sort of order) order, rank

Derived terms

* sorted * sorting * sort out

Statistics

Anagrams

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soft

English

Adjective

(er)

Easily giving way under pressure.

My head sank easily into the soft pillow.

(of cloth or similar material) Smooth and flexible; not rough, rugged, or harsh.

Polish the silver with a soft cloth to avoid scratching.

soft''' silk; a '''soft skin

* Bible, Matt. xi. 8

They that wear soft clothing are in kings' houses.

Gentle.

There was a soft breeze blowing.

* Shakespeare

I would to God my heart were flint, like Edward's; / Or Edward's soft and pitiful, like mine.

* Tyndale

The meek or soft shall inherit the earth.

Expressing gentleness or tenderness; mild; conciliatory; courteous; kind.

soft eyes

* Bible, Proverbs xv. 1

A soft answer turneth away wrath.

* Wordsworth

A face with gladness overspread, / Soft smiles, by human kindness bred.

Gentle in action or motion; easy.

* Milton

On her soft axle, white she paces even, / And bears thee soft with the smooth air along.

Weak in character; impressible.

* Glanvill

The deceiver soon found this soft place of Adam's.

Requiring little or no effort; easy.

a soft job

Not bright or intense.

soft lighting

(of a road intersection) Having an acute angle.

At the intersection, there are two roads going to the left. Take the soft left.

(of a sound) Quiet.

I could hear the soft rustle of the leaves in the trees.

* Shakespeare

Her voice was ever soft , / Gentle, and low, — an excellent thing in woman.

(linguistics) voiced, sonant

DH represents the voiced (soft)'' th ''of English these clothes. —

(linguistics, rare) voiceless

(linguistics, Slavic languages) palatalized

(slang) Lacking strength or resolve, wimpy.

When it comes to drinking, he is as soft as they come.

(of water) Low in dissolved calcium compounds.

You won't need as much soap, as the water here is very soft .

(UK, colloquial) Foolish.

* Burton

He made soft fellows stark noddies, and such as were foolish quite mad.

(physics) Of a ferromagnetic material; a material that becomes essentially non magnetic when an external magnetic field is removed, a material with a low magnetic coercivity. (compare hard)

(of a person) Physically or emotionally weak.

Incomplete, or temporary; not a full action.

The admin imposed a soft''' block/ban on the user or a '''soft lock on the article.

(UK, of a man) Effeminate.

* Jeremy Taylor

A longing after sensual pleasures is a dissolution of the spirit of a man, and makes it loose, soft , and wandering.

Agreeable to the senses.

a soft liniment

soft wines

* Milton

the soft , delicious air

Not harsh or offensive to the sight; not glaring or jagged; pleasing to the eye.

soft colours

the soft outline of the snow-covered hill

* Sir Thomas Browne

The sun, shining upon the upper part of the clouds made the softest lights imaginable.

Synonyms

* (of a cloth) non-abrasive, fluffy * (gentle) gentle, light, nesh * (of a sound) quiet * (lacking strength or resolve) meek, mild, wimpy, nesh * (foolish) daft, foolish, silly, stupid

Antonyms

* (giving way under pressure) hard, resistant, solid, stony * (of a cloth) abrasive, scratchy * (gentle) harsh, rough, strong * (acute) hard * (of a sound) loud * (lacking strength or resolve) firm, strict, tough * (of water) hard * (foolish) sensible

Derived terms

* soft-boiled * soft copy * soft drink * soften * soft focus * soft-hearted * softly * softness * soft on * soft palate * soft power * soft science fiction * soft serve * soft shoe * soft soap * soft-spoken * soft touch * soft toy * software * softwood * softy

Interjection

(en interjection)

(archaic) Be quiet; hold; stop; not so fast.

* Shakespeare

Soft , you; a word or two before you go.

But, soft ! What light through yonder window breaks?

Adverb

(en adverb)

(lb) Softly; without roughness or harshness; gently; quietly.

*(Edmund Spenser) (c.1552–1599)

*:A knight soft riding toward them.

*:There was a neat hat-and-umbrella stand, and the stranger's weary feet fell soft on a good, serviceable dark-red drugget, which matched in colour the flock-paper on the walls.

Noun

(en noun)

A soft or foolish person; an idiot.

(George Eliot)

Statistics

* 1000 English basic words ----