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What is the difference between symbol and sort?

symbol | sort |

As nouns the difference between symbol and sort

is that symbol is a character or glyph representing an idea, concept or object while sort is a general type.

As verbs the difference between symbol and sort

is that symbol is to symbolize while sort is (senseid)to separate according to certain criteria.

symbol

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • A character or glyph representing an idea, concept or object.
  • $ is the symbol for dollars in the US and some other countries.
    '
  • ' is the octothorpe symbol .
  • ''Chinese people use word symbols for writing.
    The lion is the symbol''' of courage; the lamb is the '''symbol of meekness or patience.
  • Any object, typically material, which is meant to represent another (usually abstract) even if there is no meaningful relationship.
  • The dollar symbol has no relationship to the concept of currency or any related idea.
  • (linguistics) A type of noun whereby the form refers to the same entity independently of the context; a symbol arbitrarily denotes a referent. See also icon and index.
  • A summary of a dogmatic statement of faith.
  • The Apostles, Nicene Creed and the confessional books of Protestantism, such as the Augsburg Confession of Lutheranism are considered symbols .
  • Visible traces or impressions, made using a writing device or tool, that are connected together and/or are slightly separated. Sometimes symbols represent objects or events that occupy space or things that are not physical and do not occupy space.
  • (crystallography) The numerical expression which defines a plane's position relative to the assumed axes.
  • That which is thrown into a common fund; hence, an appointed or accustomed duty.
  • * Jeremy Taylor
  • They do their work in the days of peace and come to pay their symbol in a war or in a plague.
  • Share; allotment.
  • * Jeremy Taylor
  • The persons who are to be judged shall all appear to receive their symbol .

    Derived terms

    * status symbol * typographical symbol

    Verb

  • To symbolize.
  • (Tennyson)

    See also

    * punctuation

    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)
  • 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

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    Anagrams

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