CATEGORY

Pronunciation (US):

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does category mean? 

• CATEGORY (noun)
  The noun CATEGORY has 2 senses:

1. a collection of things sharing a common attribute

2. a general concept that marks divisions or coordinations in a conceptual scheme

  Familiarity information: CATEGORY used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• CATEGORY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A collection of things sharing a common attribute

Classified under:

Nouns denoting groupings of people or objects

Synonyms:

category; class; family

Context example:

there are two classes of detergents

Hypernyms ("category" is a kind of...):

accumulation; aggregation; assemblage; collection (several things grouped together or considered as a whole)

Meronyms (members of "category"):

superphylum ((biology) a taxonomic group ranking between a phylum and below a class or subclass)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "category"):

grammatical category; syntactic category ((grammar) a category of words having the same grammatical properties)

paradigm; substitution class (the class of all items that can be substituted into the same position (or slot) in a grammatical sentence (are in paradigmatic relation with one another))

brass family ((music) the family of brass instruments)

violin family ((music) the family of bowed stringed instruments)

woodwind family ((music) the family of woodwind instruments)

stamp (a type or class)

sex (either of the two categories (male or female) into which most organisms are divided)

declension (a class of nouns or pronouns or adjectives in Indo-European languages having the same (or very similar) inflectional forms)

conjugation (a class of verbs having the same inflectional forms)

denomination (a class of one kind of unit in a system of numbers or measures or weights or money)

histocompatibility complex (a family of fifty or more genes on the sixth human chromosome that code for proteins on the surfaces of cells and that play a role in the immune response)

Derivation:

categorial (of or relating to the concept of categories)

categoric; categorical (relating to or included in a category or categories)

categorize (place into or assign to a category)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A general concept that marks divisions or coordinations in a conceptual scheme

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Hypernyms ("category" is a kind of...):

concept; conception; construct (an abstract or general idea inferred or derived from specific instances)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "category"):

form; kind; sort; variety (a category of things distinguished by some common characteristic or quality)

pigeonhole (a specific (often simplistic) category)

rubric (category name)

way (a general category of things; used in the expression 'in the way of')

Derivation:

categorial (of or relating to the concept of categories)

categorical (relating to or included in a category or categories)

categorize (place into or assign to a category)

 Context examples 

A category of psychiatric disorders which are the direct physiologic consequence of a general medical condition.

(Mental Disorder Due to a General Medical Condition, NCI Thesaurus)

NIH: Major category of Complementary and Alternative Medicine classification.

(Alternative Medical System, NCI Thesaurus)

This category includes neoplasms with low grade dysplasia and high grade dysplasia.

(Ampullary Noninvasive Papillary Neoplasm, Pancreatobiliary Type, NCI Thesaurus)

Finally, the stage is subdivided into categories of A and B depending on the presence of symptoms of itching, weight loss, fever, and night sweats.

(Ann Arbor Lymphoma Staging System, NCI Thesaurus)

A category specifying that a product is marketed as a medical food under the statutory definition found in section FDA regulation 21 C.F.R. 101.9(j)(8).

(Medical Food Marketing Category, NCI Thesaurus)

Cellular metabolism can be divided into two categories.

(Metabolic Process, NCI Thesaurus)

This category includes cervical carcinoma, Kaposi sarcoma, and non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

(AIDS-Related Malignant Cervical Neoplasm, NCI Thesaurus)

The designated category assigned by the National Institutes of Health to a specific funding mechanism for an extramural research activity.

(Activity Code, NCI Thesaurus)

This sub-category of CAM contains numerous specific modalities used in mind-body approaches to health.

(Mind-Body Method, NCI Thesaurus)

A coded value specifying a subdivision within a larger category of an adverse event.

(Adverse Event Subcategory Code, NCI Thesaurus)